Technical Sustainability.. Technologies That Need Localization

Sustainability and food security dominate the global headlines, but it is very important to shed light on technical sustainability in ensuring the provision of local and national applications, and to begin with the most important electronic services that constitute the technical belt and technical life of people and nations. For anyone looking at the disputes occurring between some countries and the great negative impact on technologies and their development—whether devices, applications, or systems—it becomes clear to everyone that we need to set a road map by which we adopt, support, and develop alternative local systems and devices that enable us to dispense, to some extent, with other applications. Here we mention some of the most important applications that we need to replicate and then develop in a way that aligns with our requirements:

Operating systems: There is no doubt that creating operating systems is one of the most difficult and complex matters, but we can benefit from Android, Linux, and even Chromium and webOS, which are open source. These systems have surpassed long periods of research and development, and our task lies in setting an alternative plan in case the commercial systems stop for any reason. No nation can dispense with desktop and mobile operating systems. Likewise, creating an internal national internet network that substitutes for the global network as a backup system for the worst circumstances, for technical life needs to continue at all times.

Digital Transformation of Institutions

Institutions that have not yet caught up with the digital transformation train need to accelerate the pace of transformation, focus on it, and verify that all internal systems work through the web without the need to use a particular operating system. This transformation is important, as it makes the institution enjoy flexibility, free itself from any attachment to any operating system, support remote work, and use any operating system without any obstacles.

App Stores

There is no doubt that they are one of the greatest blessings and greatest technical achievements, providing a single platform that gathers millions of apps in various fields, uses, and innovations. But unfortunately, the greed of some, along with restriction and the theft of ideas, is a detestable thing that has been strongly noticed in those who control the app stores, even in the selection of content, where some are favored over others for purposes of their own. You find them shining a light on certain apps and not others, and obscuring others, indeed deleting them because they do not serve them. Providing alternative app stores must be a demand, as must enabling anyone who wishes to launch their own store on all systems, and this is a challenge in itself. Therefore, many have decided to adopt web apps instead of store apps, but some fight this trend and seek to demolish this important transformation.

Conversations and Communication in All Their Forms

Among the most important apps that need localization are the apps for communication, messaging, and conversations, whether written or audio, in addition to video, which has recently become a large part of our lives. It is a necessity to provide identical—indeed better—alternatives than what is available and offered, and for everyone to adopt these national platforms so that they become effective and active.

Maps and Delivery

The existence of alternative systems for maps and navigation—it would be preferable if they were provided by the service providers, given the size of their database, its accuracy, and the possibility of supporting it by making it available to everyone without the need for internet, as well as supporting it by following traffic movement, roads, and congestion, and linking it to the cities' infrastructure systems for instant follow-up, and setting practical, tangible, and realistic strategic plans for developing roads and transportation, distributing shops, services, clinics, pharmacies, and other abundant information that could be invested locally. Some advanced countries have great experiences in this important field, and in some of them you find that most of the population uses only their local applications.

Electronic Payment

It is very strange that there are no national systems for the matter of payment via phone smoothly, like the Samsung Pay experience, which is the most flexible of its peers, as the bank's app is able to add all your bank cards with the touch of a button—something I have not seen on Apple Pay or Google Pay until now. We need a national alternative for all payment methods and harmony among banks, adopting it as a primary national payment method. It is essential to support other payment methods, but at the very least, purchases and payments by citizens and residents should provide a national benefit.

Connected Devices

One of the biggest challenges in this type of device is that it needs a main server to connect to in order to execute commands. In China and elsewhere, we find hundreds of national platforms that enable any device to connect to them in exchange for a certain agreement, which has created a huge environment of connected devices compatible with all services such as Google, Alexa, Apple Home, and others. We lack such platforms, and they do not exist in the region. They are very important, especially given the quantities of data we waste, which go to others. It does not matter whether these platforms are profitable with huge sums, but what matters is that they preserve the quantity of data and privacy. Likewise, we need to develop national systems that control connected devices, because they are part of the system of modern life.

Machine Learning and Its Data

Machine learning systems, or what is exaggeratedly called in the media "artificial intelligence," are important to replicate and provide locally with all energies, for they hold many benefits, this not being the place to mention them due to their abundance. They are indeed among the most difficult and most important things that can be provided, with effort exerted to apply and implement them locally in various fields, uses, and the study and analysis of data, so that we form advanced solutions and developed intelligent systems that understand and execute, with the necessity of their being national.

Resource Systems

This vital system, for which we lack strong national alternatives—bearing in mind that if a little focus were directed at it, resource systems far superior to those available would be produced, and if alliances were formed to implement it at the level of community institutions, the output would be strong and beneficial, saving a great deal of time, money, and effort.

National Factories

Industry is the cornerstone of sustainability, and we need to provide the most important parts, transports, and networks, such as processors, memory, storage drives, fiber-optic cables, other connection cables, network devices, servers, and others—even if they are produced under licenses from international companies. But we must learn the craft, develop it, and provide it nationally.