Technology and Data

Understanding the Digital Planet

Digital Planet is an interdisciplinary research initiative out of The Fletcher School's Institute for Business in the Global Context (IBGC), led by Dean of Global Business at The Fletcher School, Bhaskar Chakravorti. The world's first pulse check of the global digital economy, and dedicated to understanding the impact of digital innovation on the world, Digital Planet provides actionable insights for policymakers, businesses, investors, and innovators.

With several editions of research focused on different regions from across the globe, Digital Planet partners with Mastercard to better understand how the world's digital economy is performing.

The Digital Planet's Digital Evolution Index 2017 is the first follow-up research to the original Digital Planet, published in 2014, and combines more than 100 different indicators across four key drivers – supply conditions, demand conditions, institutional environment, and innovation and change. The report captures both the state and rate of digital evolution, as well as identify implications for investment, innovation, and policy priorities. This research also adds a newly devised analysis of digital trust, as concerns around security amongst data reaches new heights.

Building "Smart Societies" – A Blueprint for Action – seeks to explore the "smartness" of each country in the world. Researchers measured this by examining the outcomes that policymakers and other key decision-makers are aiming for, the progress they have made, and the gaps they need to close. Smart countries don't just keep up with the technology of the day, they take a proactive stance of envisioning the desired societal outcomes of technology and investing in appropriate digital technologies to realize these positive outcomes.

The Digital Evolution Index (DEI) Latin America-Caribbean (LAC) edition, is the latest release of in-depth regional analysis of the pace of digital evolution of 24 LAC countries, across four key drivers of supply, demand, institutional environment and innovation. To learn more about the findings and recommended next steps from the DEI LAC, released in late 2018, click here.

Learn more:

Digital Planet research
Dean Bhaskar Chakravorti's research and publications
Institute for Business in the Global Context