Asian Invasion

This is a term used in the ’80s to describe mass immigration to NZ by people from the Asian region.

While this has changed NZ I believe it’s for the better and don’t have any problem with the changing face of our country.

But the global community needs to get ready for the changing face of the internet population – as countries like Malaysia and Singapore go all out to increase internet access to all it’s population.

I’ve just been travelling through some of the backpacker islands and noticed that while the locals may live in basic accommodation they have cellphones and laptops – they are connected to the world. There’s something surreal about watching an old guy haul rocks up a hill in buckets and then answer his mobile when it rings!

While increased net use will be a good thing for the people the promotion of the service includes headlines such as “Will the next YouTube come from Asia” feeding a get rich quick reaction. The majority of net businesses take years to become profitable, and many never do. Highlighting the riches of a few will only work to create resentment when reality kicks in.

Compound that with articles in the business section which talk about the crisis in India which has such a high number of IT graduates but the teaching methods and english literacy are causing problems when trying to outsource to the USA and others. It seems that even the Indians are aware that they have big problems which need to be resolved. That’s not news to the people on the other end of the call centre problem but it’s good that the Indians know there is an issue – they can fix it (hopefully) before their contracts get cancelled.