MSDN Magazine Launch Issue - February 15, 2008 - (Page 132) The Digital Declaration of Independence BILL HILL Digital technology is remaking our world. Five hundred or film. He can get news from anywhere in the world, buy airline years from now, historians will look back at the things all of us who tickets or any other kinds of goods online, and so on and on. Those of us who create the digital technology to make possible read MSDN® Magazine are doing today, and I believe they’ll call our these things—and things we haven’t yet thought of—have it in our time The Digital Renaissance. All of the science, technology, medicine, and economic pros- power to “begin the world over again,” as Paine said. So: what kind perity we enjoy today—and the political shape of the planet—can of world do we want to create? There are huge issues and questions be traced back to the printing technology developed by Johannes that need to be addressed. Microsoft, with more than a billion users, has Gutenberg. It’s hard to imagine how any of those hit many of them first. There’s never been a comdevelopments could have happened without the What kind of world do pany whose products had the potential to change widespread adult literacy and ability to record we want to create? the lives of billions of people across the globe. and share knowledge, which his technology enAnd there’s no playbook to follow. So we’ll stumabled. The Bible that Gutenberg produced in 1455 There are huge issues ble sometimes, but we’ll continue to grow if we wasn’t the first book ever printed. But it was the and questions that get more things right than wrong. Are our first first ever printed using movable metal type in a need to be addressed. billion customers the “early adopters,” who paid mechanized system. This innovation was like an a premium price to be in the first wave? What undersea earthquake. Not even noticeable at first, it became a tidal wave that changed the world forever; its ripples about the next billion? A couple of these big questions led Microsoft to create the Unare still being felt after more than half a millennium. The ability to easily store and share information broke the stran- limited Potential program. This program, aimed at the five billion glehold of church and state. It enabled widespread adult literacy people living in underserved communities worldwide, attempts to and it led to the explosion of thought we call the Renaissance. It assist those individuals and communities in achieving their dreams also led to the new political and economic thinking historians call by supplying current and affordable technologies. I don’t know even a fraction of the questions we’ll all have to ask— the Age of Enlightenment. People knew their world was changing. Thomas Paine, one of the thinkers behind the American Revolution, far less the answers. There’s no detailed map of this journey. But we captured it best. On St. Valentine’s Day, 1776, he said, “We have it do need another beacon to give us a direction. I couldn’t find a better in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to one than the Declaration of Independence, updated for the Digital the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. Age. So here’s my Digital Declaration of Independence: The birthday of a new world is at hand.” We hold this truth to be self-evident, that every human has an equal Once it was clear the shape of the future was up for grabs, the and unalienable right to the means to create, distribute, and consume information to realize his potential for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of group of like-minded thinkers to which Paine belonged began to Happiness—regardless of the country he lives in, his gender, beliefs, ask: “What kind of world do we want to build?” Their thinking led racial origin, language, or any impairments he may have. to the Declaration of Independence, which defined a set of human It’s not about forcing democracy on the whole world. And it’s not rights toward which we still strive today. We haven’t yet achieved all of the lofty ideals it contains. But it has been like a beacon on a about trying to change everything at once. Remember, it took more than 200 years from the first Declaration to bring about equal rights high hill, against which we can check our progress. An even greater change is happening now. A new undersea quake just in the United States, even though slavery had been abolished occurred about 40 years ago, when the first crude “personal com- for more than 100 years—and are we there even yet? The Digital Declaration is not a map; it’s a compass bearing. Join puter” appeared. It’s taken since then to build the huge tidal wave ■ that is once again sweeping across the planet. My son, who is 17, me on the journey? takes it for granted that he can carry his entire gigantic music colBill Hill joined Microsoft in 1995 because he believed the company would lead the transition lection with him wherever he goes. He can have online friends in from reading on paper to reading on the screen. He is one of the inventors of the ClearType Massachusetts or Mongolia. He can produce his own music, video, technology, which dramatically improved the screen readability of text. { } 132 msdnmagazine
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