IDEA ECONOMY 2011Harry Lewis

School of Engineering and Applied SciencesHarvard University

Sir Run Run Shaw Lecture 2January 19, 2011

The Digital Explosion

Exponential increase in communications speed storage capacity computing speed

The Digital Explosion

Exponential increase in communications speed storage capacity computing speed

Exponential decrease in barriers to entry

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John Perry Barlow (1993)The Economy of Ideas

One didn't get paid for ideas, but for the ability to deliver them into reality. For all practical purposes, the value was in the conveyance and not in the thought conveyed.

In other words, the bottle was protected, not the wine. Now, as information enters cyberspace, the native

home of Mind, these bottles are vanishing. With the advent of digitization, it is now possible to replace all previous information storage forms with one metabottle: complex and highly liquid patterns of ones and zeros.

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Harvard Club of Boston 11December 4, 2010 NY Review of Books 10/28/2010

“a gigantic digital library that would make the cultural heritage of the country available to everyone”

Land of e-Publishing Opportunity?

No tax on foreign profits Good telecommunications infrastructure Good computing infrastructure Expertise on legal aspects of global

financial transactions Access to important markets Educated workforce skilled in both

Technology and Business