The Nokia-Siemens Networks/LECG Connectivity Scorecard has been updated again: Malaysia has ranked top of the Resource-Driven Economy group for the third year in a row, and has the highest overall score of any country in the Asean region.

What does this mean, exactly? The Connectivity Scorecard ranks countries’ level of “useful connectivity”. Rather than simply noting physical information & communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, it defines connectivity as the total interaction between users and the network. Included are statistics on hardware, software, user skill level and information services available in both business and government.

The Connectivity Scorecard says that “all economies are information economies”, and divides the world into two categories as assigned by the World Economic Forum: (a) Resource-Driven Economies (ie: ‘developing’ or ‘emerging’ countries), and (b) ‘Innovation-Driven’ economies (fully ‘developed’ countries). Each faces different challenges to gaining full connectivity. Resource-Driven Countries are less suited to foreign investment but sometimes suffer from a shortfall in the Human Capital required to make widespread use of IT infrastructure, while Innovation-Driven economies often face difficulties implementing new technologies and sluggish market uptake. Therefore, it is possible for a Resource-Driven country to score higher than many Innovation-Driven ones, as Malaysia has done: it would rank sixth in the world on total score alone, above Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Its score of 7.14 (out of 10) is by far the highest in its grouping.

Malaysia scored its points for high levels of literacy, mobile and broadband penetration, business useage and skills, secondary school enrolment, and good levels of business and government spending on IT infrastructure and skills. The only Asean country in the Innovation-Driven category, Singapore, ranked 11th in the group with a score of 6.68.

source: The LEGC Connectivity Scorecard

full report: (PDF link)

(this article also posted on New Asian Innovators)