Exam practice

An emerging technology is new or changing fast; its uses are still being found and its effects aren’t yet well known. Examples: low-orbit satellite internet, quantum computers (also AI agents, brain–computer interfaces, delivery drones).
An established technology is settled: most people know what it does, it is cheap and reliable, and its effects have been studied for years. Examples: mobile phones, fiber-optic cables (also spreadsheets, email, ATMs).
Every established technology was once emerging.

The difference is distance. A geostationary satellite is 35,786 km above the equator and seems to stay still, so a few satellites cover most of the world and dishes don’t move. A low Earth orbit satellite is only a few hundred kilometers up (roughly 350 to 600 km), crosses the sky in minutes, and a service needs thousands of them.
Because signals travel at the speed of light, distance sets a least delay. Through a geostationary satellite, there and back takes about half a second (4 × 35,786 km ÷ 300,000 km/s ≈ 0.48 s); through a low-orbit one at 550 km, about 0.007 s. Half a second makes video calls awkward and fast games impossible; a few thousandths doesn’t. So low-orbit satellites make satellite internet good for almost everything a cable is, in places no cable reaches.
New problems (any one): thousands of satellites crowd the orbits and risk collisions and debris; their trails spoil astronomers’ photographs; satellites burning up leave metal-oxide particles in the upper air; licensing a foreign company raises questions of tax, jobs and the law.

Inequity in access is about who can use a technology at all. Example: the app needs a smartphone and fast internet, so a student with no phone, or in a village with no signal, can’t use it.
Inequity in outcomes is about who benefits, and who is harmed, among the people who do use it. Example: the app works only in English, so a student who reads English well learns a lot from it, while a student who studies in Nepali uses it too but understands little; or students with a phone of their own use it every evening while those sharing a parent’s phone get a few minutes, and fall further behind.

For example:

1. Answers in Nepali, and by voice: includes students who study in Nepali medium or read English poorly, and, by voice, students who read slowly.
2. Lessons that download for use offline: includes students whose data runs out or whose signal comes and goes.
3. Works with a phone’s screen reader: includes blind and low-vision students.
4. Free to students, paid for by schools or the government: includes students from poorer families.
5. (Also: a version on school lab computers, for students with no phone of their own.)

Still left out: students with no smartphone and no school computer, or in places with no signal at all, need a device and a connection. That needs a school, a local government or a national policy (devices for schools, towers, community centers), not a change to the app.

For example:

1. 1993–1995: the first email links and services began in Kathmandu, then internet connections by satellite. Environment: the mountains made cables slow and costly, so satellites came first.
2. 1997–1998: the Telecommunications Act let private companies in, and a regulator was created. Society (government): a law opened the market, and competition brought prices down.
3. 1999: the first mobile network. Environment and society: towers were easier than lines to every house in the hills, and phones were cheaper than computers, so most people would meet the internet on a phone.
4. 2015: the earthquake damaged networks, but phones and the internet carried news and the volunteers’ maps; it also blocked the road for the planned fiber link to China. Environment: a disaster.
5. 2018: a second fiber route to the world opened, through China at Rasuwagadhi. Society: Nepal wanted not to depend on one neighbor, and a network that stays up if one route fails.

(Also: load-shedding until 2016–2018; families working abroad driving smartphones and video calls; 4G in 2017; the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.)

Many old programs stored a year as two digits (“99” for 1999). In 2000 the year would be “00”, which the programs would read as 1900, giving wrong ages, interest, bills and dates.
It happened because, in early computing, memory was very costly, and saving two digits on every date saved a lot; nobody expected the programs to still be running decades later.
Programmers around the world spent years finding and fixing the code, at a cost estimated at hundreds of billions of US dollars. Because of that work, very little went wrong on 1 January 2000, so some people concluded there had been no problem. The work was the reason nothing happened.

Benefits: quick payments, no change to find, a record of every sale and payment, less cash to be stolen.
Risks: when the network or the power fails (an earthquake, a flood, a long outage) nobody can pay; scams and fees; people without a phone, older people and visitors can’t buy.
Long-term effects: the shops’ records can help them get loans; but every purchase of every person is recorded for years by companies, which is a risk to privacy; people without phones are shut out of daily life; the town depends completely on its network and electricity. A better choice keeps cash possible too.

A regulatory sandbox lets companies try a new product with real customers, under a regulator’s close watch and within limits (a set time, a limited number of customers, customers told it is a test), before the full rules for it are decided. It helps because nobody yet knows an emerging technology’s effects: the company can test its idea without being blocked, the customers are protected, and the regulator learns from what really happens before writing lasting rules.
A sunset clause says that a rule ends on a set date unless it is renewed. It stops a rule written for today’s technology from lasting forever without anyone checking whether it still works.

Use the e-waste example’s parts: the problem with evidence, the law, the exact change, who gains and pays, risks and safeguards, how it encourages good innovation, how we will know.

For example, on online job scams:

• The problem: job and loan scams are among the frauds Nepal Police’s Cyber Bureau sees most; victims, often young people, lose savings to fake “task” jobs advertised on social media.
• The law: the Electronic Transactions Act and the rules on advertising and on social networks.
• The change: platforms that sell advertising in Nepal must check that anyone placing a job advertisement is a registered business, show its registration number in the advertisement, and remove an advertisement within 24 hours of a police report.
• Who gains, who pays: job seekers gain; real employers gain trust. Platforms pay the cost of checking; small employers must register.
• Risks and safeguards: real but unregistered small employers could be blocked: allow individuals to advertise with their name and phone verified; abuse of reports to remove real ads: only the Cyber Bureau may report.
• Good innovation: technology-neutral (any platform, any kind of advertisement for work); light for small employers.
• How we will know: the Cyber Bureau’s count of job-scam complaints, compared each year; a review after two years.

(Any law, problem and change, with all seven parts thought through, is a good answer.)

After the earthquake, rescuers needed maps that didn’t exist. Kathmandu Living Labs and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team split the affected area into small squares on a website (decomposition: one huge job became thousands of small ones), so each volunteer could take one. Volunteers traced roads and buildings from satellite photos, all in the same agreed way (abstraction and patterns: a road is a line, a building a shape, each with a few labels), and others checked their work (testing).
The team was different in every way, and each part was needed: programmers built the website; thousands of volunteers abroad, in many time zones, traced around the clock; mappers in Nepal added names, paths and blocked roads that only local people knew; aid workers said what they needed and used the maps.

A contract should say: exactly what will be delivered (and how many changes); the price, currency, and whether per hour or per job; when and how payment is made (part up front, or a milestone held by the platform); who owns the finished work; how either side can end the agreement.
Through a bank, because: it is legal; the bank records the money as foreign income, which the freelancer can show for a loan, a visa’s tax clearance or a dispute; and the tax due can be paid properly. Informal routes like hundi are illegal.
Never lend an account, because criminals use borrowed accounts (money mules) to move stolen money; the police trace the account to its owner, who can be charged, and lose their account and reputation.

Warning signs: very high pay for simple work with no experience; a fee to pay before starting; a hurry (“only 5 places left”, “today”); no company name, website or interview.
What to do: don’t pay and don’t send personal details or documents; look for the company by name on other sites; never pay to get a job; tell a family member or teacher; if money was lost, keep every message and receipt and report it to Nepal Police’s Cyber Bureau.