Digital transformation is the reforming process that is launched with the integration of technologies into all areas of our lives: communicate, work, study, inform ourselves, produce goods and services or express ourselves. It allows us to take advantage of all the benefits of technological adoption to improve our lives.
Globally, 62% of the student population participates in app study groups such as WhatsApp ( https://bit.ly/3U5f2Ei ). In Mexico, 35.2% of the students enrolled in the 2021 school year lacked fixed internet at home, mainly due to their limited economic resources, lack of infrastructure in their locality and even due to lack of interest or ignorance of its use or usefulness ( https://bit.ly/3TSU5w6 ).
In terms of health, today in Mexico, technology allows a part of the population to access basic information on care, good habits or medical follow-up through applications, but fully adopting telemedicine can bring basic health coverage to every corner of the country, including the performance of highly specialized interventions through remote surgery.
These examples allow us to measure the importance of digitization in Mexico, where there are still significant digital gaps and where we do not observe digital transformation processes more than in a few cases. According to Inegi data, internet use continues to be concentrated in urban areas, 78.3%, compared to rural areas with 50.4% ( https://bit.ly/3zgt0uZ ).
This gap indicates that the very conditions that maintain economic and social inequalities make it difficult for people to access the internet, so we need deliberate strategies to break the cycle of poverty, which is possible through digitization.
Faced with this context, it is urgent that each of us, from our trenches, push for a profound digital transformation throughout the country. We have to make society in general understand the extraordinary relevance of information and communication technologies to overcome the challenges we face.