Digital connectivity has just reached a major milestone: The number of connected mobile devices has surpassed the number of people on Earth.
Why is this mobile milestone so important? Mobile devices empower like nothing else. Just look at the high school protestors in Hong Kong right now.
But the numbers, tracked by these real-time digital tickers (World Population, Mobile Connections), don't tell the whole story. More than half the people in the world still have no cell phone, the gateway to health, political power and economic growth.
"No other technology has impacted us like the mobile phone. It's the fastest growing manmade phenomenon ever -- from zero to 7.2 billion in three decades," said Kevin Kimberlin, Chairman of Spencer Trask & Co. who helped create the funding to launch cellular pioneer Millicom, Inc., the only startup selected by the FCC to demonstrate the viability of cellular.
Kimberlin is celebrating this historic moment, although he makes one point: It will take entrepreneurs like those at the start of the mobile age to finish the job.
About the mobile phone, Leonard Gubar, the attorney and Director of Millicom, said, "To me, it was miraculous. Now today, you can do everything with a mobile phone."
