Welcome to the 2021 edition of the Global Telecom Women’s Network (GTWN) flagship publication, The Mobile Century: Life and Work in the Digital Era (TMC).
The GTWN has for many years published a new edition of TMC during its annual gala GTWN Welcome Reception at the start of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. 2020 was the first year where this event could not take place, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the planned 2021 event was postponed until mid year.
Despite this disruption, we decided to push on and use the opportunity offered by the stay-at-home orders in many parts of the world to leverage our colleagues’ expertise to provide thought leadership on the future and how we can best plan for it. With more people wanting to live and work differently, we must grasp this opportunity to be bold and to plan more resilient, future-focused organisations. Notwithstanding the trauma and difficulties of 2020, we have been heartened by the triumph of science and technology that has led to the rapid development of vaccines to fight the virus. We have also witnessed a type of digital transformation ‘on steroids’, which has changed many areas of our lives almost beyond recognition.
This edition of TMC is a celebration of the work of many experts in the digital tech sector in a range of interrelated fields including: digital transformation; leading-edge information science; entrepreneurship and start-ups; education; investment and finance; public policy; the law; AI, IoT: urban design; digital culture and diversity. Together the articles provide a view of the future transformed by digital technology, but also reimagined in response to the developments of the recent past. The aim is to offer useful insights into the key issues facing us all as we emerge from the pandemic and to encourage us all to continue to work together to bring about positive change for a better future. It is also a recognition of the vital contribution that women continue to make to innovation in the digital tech sector.
We sincerely thank all of our authors and participants for their contribution to this project. We are also very grateful for the generosity of our platinum sponsor, CMS, without whom this edition would not have been possible.
Vicki MacLeod
Editor In-Chief
The Mobile Century
