Could a worldwide technology competition for high school kids, be considered as a benchmark for understanding the competitiveness of countries across world? Could the results be analysed to understand the spread and interest of technology across the world?
I came across Google Science Fair results, which are displayed below, by mapping winners from each country on Google map.
This is interesting because, there are some major observations that could be drawn from this map.
1. Most entries are from US. Within US, they are distinctly from West Coast and East coast. Rest of the US seems to be lagging behind.
2. There are just three map pointers from Europe. Within Europe there are three entries from Spain. What about Germany, France and other major European countries?
3. Three entries from India. Two from Banglore and one from Lucknow.
4. Major ethnicity of the participants is Asian (Indian / Chinese).
This raises different questions such as.
1. Why there are no participants from rest of the US?
2. Why Europe is lagging so much behind?
3. Why not more participation from other Indian cities like Pune, Mumbai etc.?
Of-course, this shows only winners, and we do not know the total number of entries submitted. But, whatever number that might be, this shows that the technology is limited to a very few privileged sections in the world, and its mass spread in education stays limited.
I can hypothesize some of the answers based on my observations so far, but it will be premature to comment based on them yet. I think the socialist agenda in most European countries is to blame, which has reduced competitiveness in people overall? I think so.
I wish to see more map markers across all over the world when Google conducts these competitions in near future.
No comments:
Post a Comment