The Lesson Plan

ABSTRACT: The world is flat. I was impressed by the idea of a global, technologically-driven platform that would provide opportunity for everyone in the world. At least, everyone who has access to it. These are my thoughts after a year of having read The World is Flat and actually subscribing to its ideas. However along the way I have challenged it, and today I articulate my thoughts for the first time on what the flat world requires of those who use it and what it means for the Philippines.

TO STUDENTS: For my current students (‘09), this piece is a commentary on The World is Flat which I will discuss in two weeks. Note how I integrated the ideas from today’s plenary session. For my past students (‘08), these are my thoughts after a year since I taught you these ideas. Definitely, a lot has changed. I don’t regret that I didn’t get to teach it this way to you. I just hope you arrive at your own conclusions, regardless of whether or not they’re similar to mine.

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When I read The World is Flat over a year ago, it became an instant favorite of mine. It talked about how computers and the internet changed the way we communicate, compete and collaborate. In recent years especially, the advent of technologies such as outsourcing, open sourcing and supply chaining has allowed for differnet countries, cultures and people to take center stage. The ultimate vindication for Friedman came when not he — but all of us — was declared TIME’s Person of the Year.

At that time, I felt that it was highly reflective of the real world, or at least the possibilities we can aspire to. I would often dream of being one to help the Philippines get on the flat world platform. And yet as time moved on, I saw that the theories of Friedman met further vindication and at the same time, even more skepticism.

Is the world really flat? I always found it peculiar that Friedman himself admits that it isn’t. A lot have shot down his theory and continue to disprove that the internet and all its convergent technologies has not created a world of equal opportunity and advantage.

However, I’ve always been satisfied with a compromise: the world is flat and it isn’t. I owe much to a student of mine and her brilliant insight: that if the world is flat, it is the platform of a seesaw. The world is flat but its tilted and uneven. It tilts to one side and another, depending on who is ‘heavier’. Though she didn’t expound much on that, I agree with the image. Now I add: this weight she mentions refers to the global state, non-states and individual actors in terms of the traditional metrics we’ve had of power: political, economic, social and cultural. The world is flat but it’s still the same world.

The missing link has always been what the flatness of the world means for the Philippines. As of mid 2006, we have 7.8 million internet users (9% of the population) and our country has been a viable hub for business process outsourcing. However, a bulk of Friedman’s ideas in The World is Flat rely on the capability of a people to innovate, create and enterprise. And this, I believe, is where we fall short.

In a lecture today by Ms. Maoi Arroyo, CEO of Hybridigm Consulting, she touched on several aspects of the biotechnology in the Philippines. But most interesting to me has been her discussion of the the key factors in high technology industry success, which are as follows:

• There must be a strong research and development (R&B) base. The Philippines rates very poorly here since we do not have a sufficient budget for this. Also, there seems to be no incentive for R&D since policymakers have not yet realized its impact on our GDP growth, which is their priority.
• There must be easy access to technology which includes technology transfer and intellectual property. Again, the Philippines rates very poorly. Technology is expensive and our budget is insufficient. Also, most technology in the Philippines are end-user products, thus stifling the creative enterprise.
• There must be adequate financial markets and here, we actually rate ‘fairly’. We also need a strong private sector to help finance R&D (only 20% of the private sector goes to R&D compared to 50-60% in other countries). We need markets to give inventors commercial incentives to innovate and create.
• There must be a flexible labor market, and here we rate rather good. The only downside is that the middle class is rather inflexible, considering the brain drain away from the country.
• And lastly, there must be a culture of entrepeneurship, and here we rate also pretty good. The ‘tiangge’ economy of the Philippines provides a good impetus for a competitive market in science and technology. However, we haven’t risen beyond the level of basic consumer goods since we lack the first two factors.

This discussion has led me to the hypothesis that despite the promise of opportunity and advantage given by the flatness of the world, it stands that it would still be the countries with a high level of hi-tech industry success who can take advantage most of the flat world. On the other hand, countries with low levels of hi-tech industry success still stand to be left behind by this quickly rising global platform.

This makes sense. After all, high levels of hi-tech industry success provide for greater access to technology, and supports a culture of technological innovation and scientific discovery. Countries like the United States, UK and Singapore still stand the most to benefit from the flat world, with about 200 million internet users in the United States alone, and iPods and Windows shipping to the world every day.

Whereas in countries such as the Philippines where R&D is mostly focused on providing low-cost medicine and industrial (ie. agricultural) solutions, jacking into the flat world is the least of their priorities. Internet access is still in its nascent stages as the country grapples with the basic problems of satisfying basic needs and running a government mired by corruption and inefficiency.

Though it can be argued that the flat world has brought business process outsourcing to the Philippines, I would raise the question of how much — or how little — BPO contributes to hi-tech industry success. BPO could mean that we are only another link in the global supply chain of cheap labor. Companies outsource their business here not so they could innovate our technology, but in order for them to cut costs. But there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

Recently, the phenomenon of homesourcing has begun where former call center employees would start up their own office and offer even lower and more competitive rates to foreign clients. And they would do this from the comfort of their home, thanks to the drop in computer costs and high speed, high bandwidth internet lines. Some form of technology transfer has made this possible, and perhaps this has become one advantage of BPO for the Filipino people.

Nonetheless, it still remains the role of the government to enact policies that will make the flatness of the world a reality for the Filipino people. True innovation, which we are capable of as seen in homesourcing, can only truly happen once they shore up R&D support and promote scientific and technological entrepeneurship.

It is not enough for the still small internet population of the Philippines to just blog, youtube, ragna, friendster and YM. Our future in the flatworld rests in our ability to create our own world-class internet services, online games, social networking sites and e-businesses. I believe we have a lot of incentive to do this, since a growing number of our population now lives outside our country, yet cling to their Filipino roots. As critical as I am of the diaspora, I admit that there can be a huge potential there.

In China, there is a man by the name of Jack Ma. He is considered the grandfather of the internet there, and has established a name by going up against e-Bay. Yes, that e-Bay. Hungry to capitalize on the 140 million strong (and still growing) internet population in China, he established Taobao.com, an internet auction site to rival the internet giant. He never wavered from his mission even when everybody else said he was crazy.

“If e-Bay is strong, it is a shark in the ocean. But we are a crocodile in the Yangtze river. If the crocodile fights the shark in the ocean, it will lose. But if the shark makes its way into the Yangtze river, it is in deep trouble.” And that is because Jack Ma knows that his China — inspite of the political restrictions in their internet — can compete against the best America has to offer.

I’ll be teaching The World is Flat again this year but with a different kind of optimism. No longer do I see it as a depiction of reality for the book is steeply American. Nonetheless, it holds much promise albeit one that is more of a challenge to us. It is an idea that I will present as a dream and an impossibility. And that is why I’m optimistic. In teaching The World is Flat, I hope to make my students hungry for that world so bad that they will have no recourse but to make sure it happens.

I still hold the dream of helping our country up on the flat world platform and I realize that it is a task I cannot do alone. That is why I teach in the Philippine Science High School. In these youngsters I see the keys to our future, literally.