Social Technology for a Better Future
At this point in history when all the cultures meet, when information moves at the speed of light, we are in a position to find what is best for all of us. We can us gather the opinion of all the people on the issues that concern us most by using information and communication technology.
Websites and TV channels already use email, telephones and SMS to gather opinions. However such polls are not very accurate yet because one person may vote many times and some people may not get to vote at all. For accurate data gathering we need:
1. Our IT experts to develop some method of authentication, perhaps Biometrics to ensure that each person votes only once.
2. This technology has to be simple and inexpensive so that it can reach all the people.
If a concerted effort is made in this direction, hopefully in a few years we will be able to know the true opinion of the people on a given issue.
In further future it may also be possible for people not just to choose between yes/no or choose one of the few options but space to express and record their opinion and suggestions in voice or written text.
The database and computing capabilities needed for such an enterprise would be very large. Perhaps they can be distributed. Initially a prototype would have to be designed and tested for a small region like a village or a city. It could then be slowly extended to larger areas.
