This is how we evaluate the Globalance Footprint with regard to education and knowledge:
Global challenge
A negative Footprint causes
- Loss of economic opportunity due to the exclusion from a knowledge-based economy
- The weakening of democratic forces through a lack of transparency in politics and business dealings
- Antiquated communication infrastructure; disadvantages as a result of insufficient access to information and global markets
- Access to information and global markets; over-indebtedness of consumers due to unsuitable pricing models or lack of knowledge
- Increasing economic costs as a result of environmental pollution and the effects of climate change
- Stagnating illiteracy rates.
Global goal
A positive Footprint fosters
- The improved quality of communication services (mobile telephony and Internet
- Development of underserviced markets (geographic, demographic, economic)
- Empowerment of the civilian population through transparency in politics and business
- Skills in the application of new technologies
- Access to markets throughout the world
- The engendering of knowledge-based professions, regardless geographic
location
- New business models in the fields of schooling and training.
Your Footprint Map for the topic
Name | Anteil | Footprint |
---|---|---|
First State Infrastructure | 0.15 | 57 |
NTT DoCoMo | 0.07 | 80 |
adverse
Balanced 100
positive
- Colours indicate the Footprint-Scores
- Field sizes indicate proportion of invested capital
The three best investments
The three investments with the best Footprint for this theme are:
Global Context: Education in the information age
The internet and digitalization have fundamentally transformed information accessibility. This development has great implications for education and generating knowledge across the world.

Source: ICT Facts and Figures 2014 published by the the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
What this chart tells us: Internet access in developing world is growing rapidly
Depicted in
the graph is the evolution of access to internet in developed and developing
countries. Within the last 10 years, the number of people with access to the
internet has almost tripled. Today, two thirds of internet users are from the
developing world. Around 40% of the world‘s population now has access to the
internet, which still implies a large potential for growth.
Globally, there are 4 billion people not yet using the Internet and more than 90% of them are from the developing world.
ICT Facts and Figures, ITU 2014
Challenge: ICT’s change society
Information and communication technologies (ICT’s) are a key factor in access to information and knowledge. They provide people with the opportunity to access independent media, educational sites, social media and financial services. They also change the way businesses operate and coordinate their efforts.
ICT’s are increasingly used in education. Through podcasts, webinars and online courses, knowledge can be transferred online. Teachers and students alike gain access to state of the art educational material on a daily basis. At the same time these technologies have opened a whole new realm of criminal activities against which ICT-users must be protected.
Investment-Relevance: Potential implies responsibility
Providing ICT services can be a very profitable business with huge economic potential. This has been proven time and again by the rise of ICT and internet giants. At the same time a phrase popularized by Stan Lee applies here: with great power comes great responsibility.
While providing access to information and knowledge is of huge value, data protection (privacy) and security issues are often cause of concern and debate. The same is true for hardware-manufacturing where material input and labour standards have been known issues in the past. ICT companies addressing these issues actively are less likely to face legal issues and customer distrust in the long-term.

78
78% of global mobile-cellular subscriptions are estimated to be held by people in the developing world today.
9
9 basic patterns can describe 92% of 100,000 security incidents studied in the 2014 Verizon data breach investigations report.
4
In sub-Saharan countries, 4 out of 10 children starting school, eventually drop out of the educational system.
Relevant sources of guidance for the Globalance Footprint
Globalance Bank considers various publications by Transparency International when investigating Footprints in Market and Infrastructure. In addition to the CPI, Transparency International also publishes the so called „ Bribe Payers Index (BPI)“, which investigates corporate behaviour of different companies when competing for contracts in various countries. Publications from the World Bank‘s „World Wide Governance Indicators Project“ are an additional source of valuable information.