Opportunities and Challenges from the Milestones of Information Technology (IT)

Information technology (IT) is to use computing equipment such as computers and smartphones to store, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate data or information. It may be the most widely used technology nowadays because no other technologies affect our daily lives as the IT does. At the same time, the IT brings a plethora of opportunities like new jobs and challenges such as digital divide with it. People do not want to miss the opportunities and like to well prepare for the challenges, but it is not easy to foresee the opportunities and challenges. However, just like the history repeating itself all the time, the same can be applied to the IT as each IT milestone creates many new opportunities and challenges. This article first reviews the previous IT milestones and their corresponding opportunities and challenges, and then tries to predict the upcoming IT milestone and its opportunities and challenges based on the previous milestones. Therefore, readers can prepare themselves for the opportunities and challenges when the next IT milestone happens