STS Class Guides

Over the next 25 years global economic growth will come overwhelmingly from previously poor countries like China, India, and Brazil. In rich countries this "rise of the rest" scenario strikes fear into the many observers who see as its primary consequence a dangerous combination ofunrestrained consumerism, unsustainable resource depletion, and an undoing of U.S. economic dominance. In The Coming Prosperity, Philip Auerswald acknowledges the gravity of these issues but argues that the inclusion of the majority of the world's population in the global economy is, first and foremost, a source of unprecedented opportunity. Auerswald asserts that entrepreneurship is the key tomaking the most of the epochal transition in the global economy that will take place in the next quarter century. Inventors, innovators, and the creators of new ventures are introducing new technologies and expanding the range of global knowledge networks at a remarkable pace. The ensuingopportunities are abundant - not only for residents of previously poor countries, but also for people in the United States and other advanced, industrialized nations. The book's rigorous analysis of economic and historical trends is enlivened by the stories of entrepreneurs making an outsize difference: people like Karim Khoja, who led the creation of the first mobile phone company in Afghanistan; Leila Janah, who is bringing "outsourced" computer work to refugeecamps; and Victoria Hale, whose non-profit pharmaceutical company turned an orphan drug into a cure for kala-azar (black fever), one of South Asia's most deadly diseases. Engagingly written and bracingly realistic about the positive prospects of our historical moment, The Coming Prosperity sees beyond the doomsday scenarios to find a multitude of new opportunities in the expanding global economy.

The present report was prepared by ITU experts Lishan Adam and Michael Minges, under the direction
of the Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States & Emergency Telecommunication (LSE)
Division of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), in cooperation with the UN Office of
the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small
Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS)