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Abstract

With less than a decade left to deliver the 2030 United Nations sustainability goals, the Covid-19 pandemic has reversed decades of human development in 175 of the 193 United Nations' signatory member states. Technological convergence holds promising opportunities to counter the impacts of Covid-19. This study examines the role of technological convergence in human development in a review of the extensive literature on this topic from multiple disciplines and by analyzing two datasets on variables related to human development from 2009 to 2021. The first dataset is provided by the Human Development Index, the ultimate measure of the world's human development, and its three indices: education, life expectancy, and gross national income per capita to proxy living standards. The second dataset provides measures of technological convergence in network accessibility and technological functionality. Network accessibility is represented by the number of Internet-connected devices and subscriptions for the Internet and mobile and fixed broadbands. Technological functionality is measured by the number of floating points carried per second, the number of transistors that fit on a microprocessor, and the worldwide flow of Internet traffic. Statistical analyses of these data sets show that the variables related to network accessibility and technological functionality have moderate positive to significant positive influences on the value of the Human Development Index and its three indices.

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Technological Convergence Impacts on Human Development

Abstract

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