How can IT save the world?

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But as more and more people jump on the Internet, it's crucial to protect their privacy from identity thieves and their data from hackers, Unisys' McGrath said. "Normally the government trails, but this is an opportunity for government to lead," he said.

Things like smart cards and RFID tracking are part of McGrath's vision for a more secure digital world. He pointed out the Malaysian government's embrace of smart cards that store passport data, banking information and health records as a model for how governments can move their citizens forward into the digital age.

But at the same time, he cited the need to make consumer privacy advocates, who generally aren't fond of technologies like RFID, part of the decision-making process. Unisys proposed that countries adopt global standards allowing RFID passports to work in the same manner from country to country. But Michael Capellas, the former CEO of Compaq and MCI, suggested that RFID standards might evolve more naturally in vertical industries, like transportation or health care, rather across borders or set by governments.

A rapidly aging population also has WCIT delegates thinking about ways that the IT industry can make the health care system better, which unfortunately isn't a new thought. "These things seem to move at glacier speeds," said Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Health group. "There's millions of people who can say no, and only a few that can say yes."

The debate has to be framed in the losses that are preventable with better use of technology within the health care industry, said Richard Granger, director general for IT with the U.K.'s National Health Service. The NHS has implemented a bold--and expensive--plan to modernize the U.K.'s health care system, which has received criticism because of setbacks caused by the adjustments to new technologies, he said.

Around 90,000 people died in the U.S. last year as the result of medical errors caused by fatigue or sloppiness that could have been prevented with better technology, Thompson said. Framed in that light, people need to understand the cost of not switching to more productive systems, Granger said.

The lack of standards is also a problem in this arena, said Karen Bell, acting deputy national coordinator for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. "The reality is that a good many of the problems have to do with lack of coordination between one system or another," she said. Records kept by one doctor won't necessarily show up in a different doctor's record-keeping system, never mind across different countries.

Large employers like Intel need to press the health care industry to mend its ways, Thompson said. The Australian government, however, has decided to move ahead in developing its own specifications, said Ian Reinecke, chief executive officer of the National E-Health Transition Authority. "Anybody who waits for the standards bodies before implementing e-health will be waiting a long time," he said.

Solutions to these problems are within reach, but more effort is required from organizations around the world before real progress can be made, according to participants. The WCIT delegates "are in an amazing position to be at the hub and source of using IT to transform society," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, said in his keynote.

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