About a year ago, Cisco launched the Digital Well-being Hub in collaboration with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This initiative is one of several that show a side of Cisco that perhaps not everyone is familiar with. What has Cisco learned from a year of Digital Well-being Hub? We spoke with Guy Diedrich from Cisco to find out more.
Most people in the IT world know Cisco as one of the big, established names in IT infrastructure. It’s all about sales, marketing, revenue, profit, market share, and so on. However, there’s another side to this company that gets relatively little attention. That side is involved in initiatives focused on corporate social responsibility, which mainly concerns social issues. There is also the Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program. This program focuses on starting up (large) projects in a country, such as the on in the port of Rotterdam, to name just one example.
Last year, the Digital Well-being Hub was launched. With this, Cisco, together with the OECD, wants to provide insight into the relationship between digital technologies and personal well-being. We explained what the intention was and is in a detailed article at the time. You can read that article again via this link.
Cisco, then, is more than just a well-oiled sales machine, even though it does, of course, reap the benefits of its investments in more social issues too. Ultimately, the company also learns a lot from initiatives such as the Digital Well-being Hub. Through these and other initiatives, Cisco can keep track of important developments in the market as a whole. The insights it gains from research and initiatives in specific countries can also be applied in other areas.
New technology is adopted more quickly and effectively in emerging economies
When we ask Diedrich, who holds the title of Chief Innovation Officer at Cisco, what the first year of the Digital Well-being Hub has brought, he indicates that a considerable amount of interesting data has been collected. The most striking finding is that new technologies such as AI are much more successful in emerging economies than elsewhere. “Adoption in India, Brazil, and South Africa is much faster than in the rest of the world,” he says.
At first glance, this may seem surprising. However, it is quite logical for several reasons. “The population in these countries is growing and is relatively young,” explains Diedrich. Young people are generally more inclined to embrace new technologies such as AI. In addition, there is also the issue of the legacy that goes hand in hand with building an economy. That is, fully developed economies also have a lot of legacy. This becomes an obstacle to innovation. “You can try to leap-frog that legacy, but the ball and chain keep you grounded,” Diedrich summarizes.
More attention to innovation is good for well-being…
The difference in adoption between emerging and established economies and populations is an interesting outcome of a year of data collection. Howerver, it is not only interesting for Cisco, which now has input on where to focus its efforts, including the CDA/DVN program. It also has something to do with personal well-being. Progress as a country, economy, or population should have a positive impact on that. And since digitization and the adoption of new technologies are an important part of progress today, they should also contribute to that, if all goes well.
To a certain extent, technological developments certainly contribute to people’s well-being. That is why “emerging economies need to be given much more attention than we have given them so far,” says Diedrich. “Especially in the area of skills, but also from a CDA/DVN perspective,” he continues. New technologies also require new skills. Without those new skills, personal well-being will not improve much. According to him, the governments of the countries/economies we are talking about here are also aware of this. They will also receive more attention from Cisco.
…but the well-being paradox lurks
On the other hand, the so-called well-being paradox also emerges from the data of the Digital Well-being Hub. “There is a strong link between recreational screen time and digital well-being,” says Diedrich. He is referring to the negative effects that screen time can have on personal well-being, especially in children but also in adults. This is paradoxical, because something we call progress is actually causing our well-being to decline.
A rather extreme response to this is that of the Australian government, which has banned social media for everyone under the age of 16. Similar voices are now being heard in the United Kingdom. Diedrich also considers this reaction to be an overreaction. Ultimately, attention must be paid to this issue in parenting and education. But if parents are constantly staring at their screens themselves, that is easier said than done.
How do you keep up?
It is, of course, easy to blame parents for supposedly not (being able to) educate their children. And there are certainly things that many parents could and perhaps should do better. On the other hand, we are also living in quite extraordinary times.
When it comes to innovation, we always talk about ages. These are becoming shorter and shorter, putting more and more pressure on people. “The Industrial Revolution and the era that goes with it (the Industrial Age) lasted 200 years, the Information Age 35-40 years, the Digital Age about 15 years,” Diedrich sums up. “And the AI micro age is more of a moment, just a few years. The quantum age is already upon us.” The latter might be even shorter, if the trend continues.
The point Diedrich wants to make is that it is no longer so obvious to keep up with the times. This also has an impact on how people deal with new technology. According to him, there should be a strong emphasis on acquiring and, more importantly, maintaining the skills needed to use all this technological innovation in the right way. He therefore advocates making the acquisition of these skills part of innovation. He has pulled innovation into the Innovation Office at Cisco for exactly this reason, he says.
Acquiring knowledge and skills will fundamentally change
In a world that is changing ever more rapidly, it is not only organizations such as Cisco that need to change. Education will also look fundamentally different, says Diedrich. “When we got our degrees, it was a really big step, an event. It wasn’t a process. Now it is,” he continues. “Learning as a process has become part of our society. It is no longer a choice and will become mandatory. If you don’t do it, you’re the exception.” This is increasingly the case, especially in economies where young people are becoming more and more decisive in the adoption of new technologies and innovation.
In practice, this means that fewer and fewer young people are going on to study in the traditional way after high school. That is, by enrolling in a college or university and spending four years there. At least, that’s what Diedrich expects. “More and more people are going straight into work after high school to obtain certifications,” he says.
Important role for NetAcad
For Cisco, the shifts in how people learn mean that Networking Academy (NetAcad) is becoming more important. According to Diedrich, it is possible to obtain CCNA certification within a few months. He also says that the highest level, CCIE, can be achieved in less than a year. These types of programs fit very well with the new way of learning that he sees emerging.
Diedrich calls NetAcad “the best thing Cisco does for the world.” Whether everyone at Cisco agrees with this remains to be seen. After all, a company that claims to enable the global internet through its enormous footprint in the networking world can make more claims of this kind. However, given Cisco’s responsibility to society, Diedrich certainly has a point, provided that the impact of NetAcad is as great as he himself claims, of course.
NetAcad obviously plays an important role in how Cisco wants to respond to the results of the first year of the Digital Well-being Hub. Naturally, the company wants to incorporate the insights into the CDA program. This will enable it to provide guidance to governments in the area of policy. It also means that Cisco must be as agile as the rapidly developing countries where they are taking their new insights.
What does this mean for non-emerging economies?
A question that comes to mind at this point is whether the more established economies where Cisco is also active with all kinds of initiatives should be concerned about investments in projects. We can imagine that even Cisco cannot invest indefinitely and will have to make choices. Given that there will be a strong focus on emerging economies, this could have consequences for the rest of the world.
According to Diedrich, those consequences are not so bad. “The impact on the focus areas [i.e where to invest, ed.] is minimal, so non-emerging economies need not worry.” When it comes to CDA, Cisco is mainly involved in the start-up phase of projects. So this is not a continuous investment. And NetAcad, a combination of CDA and CSR, is already available worldwide in principle. Other CSR initiatives such as Hackshield mainly require investments in (voluntary) hours from Cisco employees. So that’s not where the big investments are either.
Will the Digital Well-being Hub deliver anything substantial?
All in all, Cisco has gained quite a few valuable insights from the Digital Well-being Hub in its first year. Now it is important to take what it has learned and do something with it. Will the data say something different next year? We think that is unlikely. Change does not happen that quickly. But steps can be taken in the right direction.
Diedrich also sees an important role for legislation and regulation in this regard. This may initially lead to a slowdown for countries and economies, but in the long run it should lead to a better balance and thus greater personal well-being. “We need to raise the speed limit and reinforce the guardrails,” he concludes. If the insights from the Digital Well-being Hub can contribute to this, the initiative will have been a success.