A look at our flattening world and how technology is changing it.

1. The Times They Are A Changin’ A Presentation by Bob Pauley [email_address]

2. Come gather 'round people - Wherever you roam To see that the waters - Around you have grown And accept it that soon - You'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you - Is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' – Or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin' Bob Dylan, Troubadour, 1964

3. Until the 1980s communication came by newspaper, book, telephone, radio, and television.

4. With the invention of the Internet came unprecedented opportunity for the remotest regions of the world.

5. “ Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what technology makes possible.” Jimbo Wales Founder of Wikipedia

6. The best companies in the world outsource to become, and to remain, the best companies.

7. Oozing with attitude and driving BMWs are young Chinese, Indonesians and Indians who walk with a zip in their step. They are called Zippies .

8. They exist because the U.S. and other industrialized nations chose to outsource and because their repressive governments made the intelligent decision to let them.

9. This process has awakened India and China and a hundred other remote parts of the world. And the unreachables are suddenly within our reach.

10. Globalization has become a reality. It is upon us!

11. Untouchables of India drink from the gutters; ragpickers defecate in the streets. They have no home and no hope.

12. Yet just a few miles away Bangaloreans in high-rises of tinted glass and burnished steel are calling to tell Americans they are late with their Hummer payments.

13. Over 3 million university degrees in science and technology will be granted this year.

14. Fully half of them will be earned by Asians.

15. In Singapore 44% of 8th graders excel in math; 38% in Taiwan; 07% in the United States.

16. Will the Indian or Chinese equivalent of Simon Cowell tell you one day that you have no talent? Will you stare in disbelief like the dimwitted losers of American Idol?

17. The U.S. has no national policy for promoting broadband. To all other industrialized nations Internet innovation is a priority.

18. Entanglement in an unwinnable war and Dancing with the Stars becomes our priority.

19. Bill Gates is the Britney Spears of India. Tim Berners-Lee (the inventor of the Internet) holds that position in China. Britney Spears is the Britney Spears of the U.S.

20. More than 3,000,000,000 of the world’s 7 billion people live in poverty right now.

21. Will the Wal-Marts of the world with their fantastic supply chains offer comfort, hope or change for the better?

22. If you are one in a million in China, there are 1,300 people just like you. In India there are 1,100 people just like you.

23. The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQ is greater than the total population of North America. In India, it’s the top 28%.

24. They have more honors kids than we have kids!

25. China and India are in a race to become the number one English speaking country in the world.

26. In the ten minutes it takes you to watch this presentation 75 babies will be born in the U.S.; 300 in China; 440 in India.

27. The 10 most desirable jobs in 2012 don’t exist today. We are preparing the students of today for jobs that don’t yet exist…

28. … using technologies that haven’t been invented, solving problems that we don’t even know are problems yet.

29. Technological change is exponential. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century.

30. It will be more like 20,000 years of progress at today’s rate of advancement.

31. Within the next decade machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence.

32. This profound occurrence represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.

33. You will live to see the merger of biological and non-biological intelligence, immortal software-based humans…

34. … and ultra-high levels of intelligence expanding outward into the universe at the speed of light.

35. So come now ye leaders - And please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway - And don't block the hall For he that gets hurt - Will be he who has stalled There's a battle outside - And it is ragin'. As it’s shakin’ your windows - And rattlin’ your walls The times they are a-changin'

36. "The course of civilization is a race between catastrophe and education. In a democracy such as ours, we must make sure that education wins the race." John F. Kennedy

37. Acknowledgements and Special Thanks to: The Law of Accelerating Returns by Ray Kurzweil; http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles The Fischbowl Blogspot by Karl Fisch; thefischbowl.blogspot.com The Times They Are A Changin’ by Bob Dylan; Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc., New York, New York The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman, 2006; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, New York