Information Technology

Industry Partners are select Member companies of the World Economic Forum that are actively involved in the Forum’s mission at the industry level. With privileged access to the Forum’s multistakeholder networks and experts, partnership brings visibility and insight to strategic decision-making on the most important industry and cross-industry related issues. This access and insight also allows Partners to contribute to leading change in global and regional issues and engage in action to support corporate global citizenship.

Recent Projects:

Over the past year, Partners contributed to a broad portfolio of projects and actively participated in numerous working groups and task forces with key public officials and other constituents.

Advancing Cloud Computing: What To Do Now?

Cloud computing is seen by many as the next wave of information technology for individuals, companies and governments.  In the spring of 2010, the World Economic Forum published a report which evaluated the impact of cloud computing technologies and highlighted the large potential benefits of adoption, ranging from economic growth and potentially sizeable improvements in employment to enabling innovation and collaboration. 

While recognizing the many benefits of cloud, the report also highlighted very significant issues that could limit our ability to benefit from cloud computing.

In the second phase of the project, the World Economic Forum focused on identifying specific action areas for addressing the issues and concerns that could impact the adoption and deployment of cloud technologies.

Our report, Advancing Cloud Computing.  What to do Now?  Priorities for Industry and Government, summarizes the outcomes of the second phase of the project and presents the eight actions areas for providers of cloud computing services and government agencies whose remits include encouraging, legislating and regulating the use of such new technologies.

We invite you to use this report for further discussions and hope that the framework described will provide a common language and a shared set of priorities for industry and governments.

ICT and Eco-sustainability:
As sustainability trends increasingly shape the competitive landscape, businesses are grappling with the simultaneous need to de-risk their operations and find new models for value creation. This future constellation of business interactions demands new business models across the value chain and a shift to decouple value generation from resource use.

In 2010 The Forum and its partners produced a report on ICT Enabled Enery Efficiency, to be published in early 2011. This report contains estimates of the environmental, economic and employment opportunities of ICT-enabled energy efficiency, and specific ideas on how to turn these opportunities into actual results

Global Information Technology Report (GITR):
The 2009-2010 GITR, the ninth edition of a series and the result of a well-established partnership between the World Economic Forum and INSEAD, aims at advancing knowledge of networked readiness and its principal drivers. The Report series assesses the progress of networked readiness in countries, revealing the obstacles that prevent governments, businesses and individuals from fully capturing the benefits of ICT Deep Dive Workshops were held at the ITU Conference in India and at the Forum`s India and Middle East Regional Meetings.