Let me begin by expressing my great pleasure for being here today.

We are living through an extraordinary moment in human history.

My guess is that historians will look back on our times, the 40-year span between 1980 and 2020, and classify it among the handful of historical moments when humans reorganized their entire civilization around a new tool, a new idea.

These decades mark the transition from the Industrial Age, an era organized around the motor, to the Digital Age, an era defined by the microprocessor -- the brains within today's personal computer.

The last time humans went through such a wrenching transition was during the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and 19th centuries. The agrarian economy was completely restructured, and social and political institutions transformed to fit the new realities.

Today we’re gathered around the idea of communication. Here at Voss.

I love words. The written word. Poetry. Novels. Thoughts. Ideas.

A great speech. A phrase in a moving moment like: "...that's one small step for man... one giant leap for mankind". The art of communication – and: Communication in itself. Bridges between people – links between cultures. Seeds for tolerance and respect.

SAIL technology is about making it more easy to communicate.

1450

Let us go back to about the year 1450 – to one of the most important moments of Western civilization.

It's the Dark Ages. Europe is mired in ignorance, disease and tyranny. A handful of people rule with the help of educated elites who consider themselves the keepers of the flame of mankind's knowledge, handed down from ancient Greece and Rome and religious traditions. They preserve this knowledge through the efforts of monks who copy each precious word by hand.

Johann Gutenberg

Enter an obscure goldsmith named Johann Gutenberg, who putters around with stamps and wine presses and finally invents the printing press. He sets to work copying all 1,282 pages of the only book he really knows, the Bible.

This printing press is a really cool idea, but there's one problem -- almost no one knows how to read. And no one knows what to write about, because no one has any concept of books beyond the Bible.

So begins the building of an educational system and the start of a culture of literacy. With few exceptions, all Europe's universities are founded in the wake of the printing press. With time, literacy is seen as a basic human right.

Soon the isolated minds of medieval Europe can communicate and trade knowledge. This eventually leads to an unparalleled explosion of scientific breakthroughs, new inventions, new art forms, new ways of thinking. It initiates the torrent of intellectual activity that laid the foundation for our modern world. Today we call it the Renaissance.

The Renaissance transformed Western culture, but the next movement, the Enlightenment, transformed public institutions.

CHANGE

The expanding numbers of learned people went beyond books into such new media as newspapers and became informed enough on public issues to think that they could govern themselves. The printing press became the revolutionary tool that enabled people to organize rebellion against the old powers and establish the institutions of representative democracy that we still use today.

Samuel Morse

Samuel Morse was a portrait painter. About 150 years ago while Morse was working on a portrait of General Lafayette in Washington, his wife -- who lived many kilometers away -- grew ill and died.

But it took seven days for the news to reach him. In his grief and remorse, he began to wonder whether it was possible to erase barriers of time and space -- so no one would be able to reach a loved one in time of need. Pursuing this thought, he came to discover how to use electricity to convey messages -- and so he invented the telegraph. Emotion led to innovation.

The Morse-code excisted as communication-system at sea until the end of the last century. The French stopped using it in 1997 with the words: "Calling all. This is our last cry before eternal silence…"

But it is not silent. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. Innovations and new technology is changing our reality.

The networked personal computers, and their future successors of digital technologies, are every bit as revolutionary as the printing press -- perhaps more so.

We're arguably at a similar moment in human history -- on a par with the decades that followed 1450.

ICT

Information and Communication Techologies, driven by the microprocessor. The microprocessor at the heart of personal computers warrants comparisons to the motor that fostered the Industrial-Age economy and society. But it's arguably bigger, even more powerful than that.

Internet

These digital technologies are fundamentally new communications tools that greatly expand the power of the individual, who can now publish almost instantaneously to millions of people around the world for very little cost.

They are two key tools in one: The changes that they can initiate could be as profound as those brought by both the motor and the printing press.

Our educational system, our culture, even our institutions of government -- all the things that define our public lives -- are poised for some cathartic changes.

It's hard to be too precise about the exact form these changes will take. We have few prototypes of the emerging institutions -- as we have with the economy -- and the overall effects on our civilization will take longer to play out, perhaps through the next century.

Educators are just beginning to be aware of these new tools and to fundamentally change their methods of teaching. Eventually computer skills will reach beyond the upper tiers of society and across generations. All schools will teach the basic literacy of our times: computer literacy.

As for our culture, digital technologies have the potential to tie together not thousands of isolated minds, as did the printing press, but billions. We don't think of ourselves as isolated now, but we really are, compared to the levels of connectivity that we soon will experience. It won't be long before people across the planet will be able to communicate instantaneously and have access to almost all the world's information and knowledge.

What will happen when we have that kind of global cross-fertilization of ideas? Who knows what kind of creative and intellectual breakthroughs might come about?

The first Renaissance came about largely because the printing press enabled all the isolated minds of medieval Europe to finally connect. What kind of synergy will be created this time around, as all the minds on the planet become wired together through the Net?

We may even see a flowering of human creativity in something like a second Renaissance.

And; SAIL-technology is making this transition easier. Think of all illiterates which can use your technology to write books or poetry. Think of the deliverance of knowledge and ideas over the barriers of language. Think of the possibilities of understanding each other better. The digital world might be a better place for all. But only if we make it such a place. That is what politics is about.

eNorway

In June of this year we launched a national eNorway-plan with the aim to create a green knowledge Economy and an Information society for all, not the few. Our aim is to make our welfare system and knowledge capacity to an advantage in the global knowledge economy. We have to put strength on an economy driven by innovations.

The nature of the Norwegian soceity, with a small population that is both homogenous and spread out over a large geographical area, has lead to the strong emphasis given on developing and making use of modern ICT. This has fostered creative and curious individualists with the ability to cooperate efficiently, thus explaining why a small country like Norway is in forefront in the utilisation of advanced ICT.

But we cannot compete in the knowledge Economy with only half of our population. Therefore, it is crucial to activate both women and men and all of our widespread population;

• through education,
• welfare arrangements
• and new technology available for all.

The efforts to promote a strong national ICT industry combined with the proliferation of new technology throughout the Norwegian society has made Norway well known as "a testbed" by international suppliers of ICT systems and equipment. Norway has made a strong effort to promote a high level of technological competence. This present us with a unique opportunity to welcome global companies who wants to take part in this development in bringing forward tomorrow’s solutions. Both in public and private sectors.

mFuture

Norway was one of the pioneers in mobile telephony, and today one in two Norwegians carries a cellular phone. We have gained international competence in the provision of satellite telephony equipment and service. A new mobile future is emerging, where telephone, data processing and information services are all offered over an extensive global network.

S.AI.L. Port Northern Europe

This brings med to today’s host, S.AI.L. Port Northern Europe.

The fact that this technological centre is chosen to be located in Voss also an important factor when speaking of the Norwegian State injecting capital into the project. S.AI.L. Port Northern Europe will not only stimulate technological innovation in the Nordic countries and be an important catalytic infrastructure measure nation-wide, but hopefully be particularly beneficial to the community of Voss. New technology gives us the opportunity to work towards regionalization in a way that was impossible decades ago.

The opportunities for access to a global market for Norwegian companies, and connection to a large and important national network of players in ICT generally and SAIL technology in particular, are among the most valuable advantages of such an involvement for Norway. On the other hand, Norway can contribute to international SAIL-activities with some of our most important instruments. Knowledge and technological infrastructure.

Norwegian solutions and Norwegian companies should find an excellent oppourtunity to globalise themselves through the network of SAIL Ports and the personal and corporate networks forming around S.AI.L Port Northern Europe.

Investment in the development of SAIL technology products and services based on the Norwegian language, is important if the Norwegian language is to survive in the digital world. In future communication this interface will have a very wide range, so it is crucial that solutions in the Norwegian language, in all its facets, are developed.

The Internet is today totally dominated by English. With the aid of solutions based on machine translation and language technology this can be changed radically. S.AI.L. Port Northern Europe is intended to be an expertise centre for business development and commercialisation, and will concentrate its activities around the idea and technologies that are commercially feasible within a reasonable time. This will also apply to products and services in the Norwegian language, including our equal second language New Norwegian and the Sami language. In this way we can retain focus on our own language as an important carrier of culture and identity.

The Ministry regards S.AI.L. Port Northern Europe as a very important infrastructure measure that is foreseen to have a catalytic effect on the commercial development of new businesses based on SAIL technology.

Due to the speculations the last weeks about one of the major investors in the project, we have asked for a meeting with both SIVA, the Norwegian regional fund – SND – and Voss community to get informed about the progress in the project.

There is little doubt that there is a considerable potential for establishment of commercial activity in the SAIL field in Norway and the other Nordic countries. The biggest challenge here will be charting and identification of a sufficient quantity of entrepreneurs and companies that want to set up here in oss, and in a Nordic perspective, so that we attain a critical mass of players.

Conlusion

Like many other nations Norway need skilled workers. We have to further educate our work force, and to attract skilled people to take jobs in our country. High living standards gained through our welfare system, our culture and a good environment will therefore be a factor to support our businesses into the new economy.

New technology brings about radical changes in the socieity. No sector is untouched. Today we can not overview the technical possibilities of tomorrow. However, we have to grasp the opportunities the new technology provides. SAIL technology is definitively such an opportunity.

But, the technology is useless if it doesn’t make us a better future. A better life. New chances. Justice – and prosperity for the many – not the few.

Thank you for your attention.