All the world’s nations were surprised by the invasion of Ukraine which personally I could not find any justification enough for Russia to do that as Ukraine is a free country in the end and it has the right to do whatever it wants for its nation’s benefits.
I cannot claim that I’m good in politics and history between both countries but nothing justifies putting people’s lives in danger and destroying their dreams and freedom to live peacefully. This is my opinion as a human living on this earth.
While this is not only happening unfortunately between Russia and Ukraine alone, it is not the first time as well, we witnessed how many countries destroyed other countries and many innocent lives damaged because of many unjustified reasons across history, we can see conflicts between countries when they seek only for their benefits without seeing others’ benefits as well, so the situation became a win-lose situation and most probably a lose-lose!
It is really miserable and grieving to see with all of this advancement in humanity, and human maturity, we still find that using war is the final solution. It was awkward that this is happening even after how we saw all of the world nations collaborate to put an end to Covid-19 and see how the human race was in danger because of a virus that disrupted all nations and industries in a few weeks and affected us for more than 2 years now. Didn’t we learn the lesson yet, that human lives are the most precious thing that we need to secure!
However, despite what is happening. This war is affecting many things and I’m just imagining it would affect and redefine many aspects in the tech industry like what Covid-19 did and more. This is a crisis that can be more dramatic than Covid-19 for the technology sector.
We all see how technology played a very important role in this war. And how big tech and other giant companies moved to support Ukraine, and this was not an easy decision for those companies who run mainly for profit in the end but getting profits without serving society and using the technology for good reasons will be useless and shameful.
Some companies did that for good and others did some movement due to political decisions and pressure from their governments. Either choice, I think this will affect other government decision-makers who are using those companies’ services and let them re-think what if I were in a similar situation what will happen with those countries in that situation whether you are the invader or besieged.
Now, this will spotlight some powerful questions about the future and the role of technology in the future!
After covid-19 hit many countries and industries, they started to re-think their supply chain and how to localize some of the investment in the local markets? Do you think that could happen to technology and its related services, will we see more localization of technology, solutions, innovation, …etc. that can protect countries from being at risk of using other technologies and losing the services in wartime? or it will be additional power to survive and keep the history, information, and heritage protected?
We saw how Russia was removed from the SWIFT payment network? How this will affect the trust in banking systems across borders and the rise of competing networks like the one from China. Or this will make the SWIFT network more powerful to let countries think about economical concequences?
What will happen to the employees, running services, current investment in a specific industry, especially for multinational global companies who are depending mainly on local resources for their operations?
What will be the role of public social media, messaging platforms, content creation that are widely adopted in many countries? How do they act to be fair without discrimination, protect privacy, and disallow misinformation? How the information and identities be trusted and filtered to know what is real and what is not?
What will be the global multinational companies’ role in the war? Can they be biased, or will we see political push?
What will happen for other joint innovation and collaboration agreements between countries for research and development in technology? What will happen in joint data-sharing initiatives between countries to work together in global crises and initiatives like pandemics, climate change, and sustainability!
What will happen in connectivity and the internet and the control of information inside and outside the borders of the country? We saw the good act Starlink as Elon Musk turned on Starlink’s space internet service in Ukraine. Or will we see more countries that are totally blocking and controlling the internet? And the protection and security of data and national assets
Will we see the rise of digitization more for culture and heritage?
What will happen in satellite, space, geospatial, and mapping technology to protect national lands?
How will AI-based weapons be regulated and controlled?
We have witnessed a series of economical sanctions from different countries on Russia that touches different aspects. This also will promote redesigning these systems to in fact be able to isolate a country without affecting the global economy or to work independently locally in case of isolation. It will need to re-think how this system can be smart to predict the consequences and what-if scenarios.
It will need a redesign to imagine who can control, how it can be designed to be self-controlled or self-regulated.
While living in this current fact, will this course of actions be repeated and followed with any country that does similar violence and act of war on another country? I hope at least this can be the story of having a clear framework of actions and sanctions that can be taken over countries in similar cases regardless of their power.
I have many questions that I have no answer for them, but I can imagine a world of dark ages with isolation and disconnection if we misuse the power of technology. I dream to live in a peaceful world but I think this dream is so good and ideal to be true, unfortunately.
I shared my personal thoughts and looking forward to learn more about yours.
Also published on Medium.
