Pekka Himanen's "Challenges to the Global Information Society"

Pekka Himanen has written a paper for the Finnish parlament in 2004 , called "Challenges to the Global Information Society". He writes about the challenges of the changing world and the challenges for the developed countries as they need to compete with the rising developing nations such as China and India.

He also proposed that his paper should be used by the European Union for planning the economic policies and innovation policies. European Union is behind the United States in terms of innovation and in terms of attracting new talent from around the world.

He sees 3 main societal models in terms of innovation currently in the world:

1. The “Silicon Valley model”, i.e. the American
neo-liberalist model. Best example of this model is the United States itself.
2. The “Singapore model”, i.e. the Asian state-run model in which the governments objective is to attract big companies to the region, this is also encouraged by China and India.
3. The “Finnish model” - which is a European combination of the information society and the welfare state, which is best represented according to Himmanen in his native country Finland. The other Scandinavian countries belong to this group also.

Himmanen sees that the developed countries and European Union have the only main chance to survive and to maintain the current higher living standard by creating and maintaining an "innovative welfare state" where all groups of people have equal opportunities and the innovation and higher productivity comes from the cooperation of different groups. The cooperation of all parts of the society is something that makes this model different from the market-driven Valley model and the Singapore model. He discusses the pre-requirements for the innovation to happen - education system and education priorities, having enough rest, keeping people mentally and physically fit. I would say that the main argument that he makes in the paper is the following:

"In the information society, where learning continues throughout our lives, schools
should not only distribute information but also, and equally importantly, build self -confidence and social skills, as well as help pupils to fulfil themselves by identifying their talents and creative passions." He says that people must "learn to learn" - become able to identify problems, generate ideas and apply source criticism, and cooperate with other people.

He sees that government and private sectors both can create the conditions for fullfilling the peoples self-actualization potential by creating the environment that encourages creativity and productivity. For example - government should encourage that citizens have FREE access to as much scientific information as possible ( museums, other means ). He also proposes that the higher education should be available to all talented people in the society, regardless of their financial status.

He says that European Union in general is doing well in terms of production innovation and engineering but business innovation lags behind the United States in terms of branding for example.

I would say that the article can be concluded shortly that he describes what are the critical success factors of an innovative and productive society in general , in a welfare state.