Silicon Valley leaders tell us that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will bring untold benefits. They say it is already underway and accelerating, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies, and warn that we will be left eating dust if we don’t get with the program. This upheaval – which also reflects the impact of robotics, bio- and nanotechnology, 5G, and the Internet of Things (IoT) – is a general-purpose revolution.

Social mobility entails the “upward” or “downward” movement of an individual in relation to those of their parents. A World Economic Forum (WEF) report titled, “Global Social Mobility Index 2020”, evaluates a child’s ability to experience a better life than their parents, while relative social mobility examines how an individual’s socio-economic circumstance inherited at birth has affected their outcome in life.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a train that you either get on or you’ll find yourself being left far, far behind. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is aware of this. We’ve seen countries like Indonesia and Thailand take lessons from Germany’s model of a 4.0 economy.

Indonesia has an issue as far as meeting the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution go. The quickly evolving landscape and potential demands on the country’s workforce is shaping into a real concern.

No event since World War II’s (WWII) end has had as profound a global impact as COVID-19. The pandemic has triggered a public health and economic crisis on a scale unseen in generations and has exacerbated systemic problems such as inequality and great-power posturing.The only acceptable response to such a crisis is to pursue a “Great Reset” of our economies, politics, and societies.

While consumers across ASEAN are excited about 5G’s promise of faster home broadband speeds and mobile internet connections, it is the technology’s low network latency and power consumption that offers a variety of opportunities for businesses.About 20 times faster than 4G, everything from instant high-definition movie streaming to cloud gaming will be less than seconds away once 5G is commercially available across the region in the next few years.

With the advancement of smart technologies and digitalisation, it seems like the world is rapidly moving into the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0. The industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market, which some have called Industry 4.0, describes the widespread integration of information and communication technology (ICT), particularly cyber-physical systems (CPS), in industrial manufacturing.No industry is immune to the disruptions brought about by digital technologies.

COVID-19 lockdowns may be gradually easing, but anxiety about the world’s social and economic prospects is only intensifying. There is good reason to worry: a sharp economic downturn has already begun, and we could be facing the worst depression since the 1930s.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has released its Global Social Mobility Index 2020. Social mobility entails the “upward” or “downward” movement of an individual in relation to those of their parents. Essentially, it evaluates a child’s ability to experience a better life than their parents, while relative social mobility examines how an individual’s socio-economic circumstance inherited at birth has affected their outcome in life.

It was recently reported that the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) had launched an initiative to connect Cambodia’s public service sector digitally with that of other countries.