I don't know whether I am committing sampling bias, but this looks eerily familiar [1].
The perhaps incorrect deduction here is that the Nordics are ahead when it comes to core or fundamental science, but they are behind when it comes to tech business longevity and business expansion potential. Of course, many of its tech companies are rather old companies to start off with [2].
Some countries suffer from a kind of inverse of this: In South Africa, fundamental science is hard to come by. (The rest of Southern Africa is even worse.) An example of this is indeed also the tech industry: If you are a programmer in South Africa, you are quite likely to be deploying and maintaining software such as Salesforce and Oracle, AWS workflows, MS SQL databases, PostgreSQL and MySQL, and so forth; and you are unlikely to be writing the actual code for the core technology that constitutes AWS, Oracle, etc. There are people writing apps, but I don't know many examples where the apps have global traction. Most websites written for local companies are shoddy and even the ones that look nice don't have any core invention behind them. Mark Shuttleworth actually lives in the Isle of Man now (not to mention Elon Musk...) and most South Africans probably don't know what Canonical is.
By contrast, if you already have a solid business in South Africa, your expansion potential is almost limitless. There are about 60 million people and most of them are below the age of 30 [3]. The youth unemployment rate, defined as unemployment of people between the age of 18 and I think 35, is usually around 60%. You also have, depending on who rates it, 7/10 of the top 10 universities in Africa as of 2020 [4]. You don't have to pay people with degrees a lot of money for it to be considered a high salary by global—especially American—standards.
[1] Norsk Data was caught off guard by the PC revolution, which had one big across hardware OS; Nokia didn't realise the importance of smartphones with one big across brand OS, apart from the iPhone. (Though I am still waiting for Linux Phone OS.)
[4] QS rates only nine universities in Africa, here is a pastebin as their website is difficult to navigate: https://pastebin.com/raw/ixLJ0Lqq. This means that the 10th university and below are not in the world top 500. It is quite likely that the University of Potchefstroom would be the 10th. Some sources claim 8/10 of the top 10, but I don't know which agency's ratings that is based on.
The GSM standard was an international effort. But as far as I know, the first GSM radio was built here in Trondheim, Norway.
In fact, I know where this radio is right now, because I've seen it :-).
I was at the local university (NTNU) where the lab dungeon keeper occasionally will test and refurbish old surplus lab equipment and then sell it. I was there to pick up a few power supplies and we started talking. Eventually he brought us on a tour of the dungeons and I found the first GSM radio standing on a shelf in the basement storage.
The perhaps incorrect deduction here is that the Nordics are ahead when it comes to core or fundamental science, but they are behind when it comes to tech business longevity and business expansion potential. Of course, many of its tech companies are rather old companies to start off with [2].
Some countries suffer from a kind of inverse of this: In South Africa, fundamental science is hard to come by. (The rest of Southern Africa is even worse.) An example of this is indeed also the tech industry: If you are a programmer in South Africa, you are quite likely to be deploying and maintaining software such as Salesforce and Oracle, AWS workflows, MS SQL databases, PostgreSQL and MySQL, and so forth; and you are unlikely to be writing the actual code for the core technology that constitutes AWS, Oracle, etc. There are people writing apps, but I don't know many examples where the apps have global traction. Most websites written for local companies are shoddy and even the ones that look nice don't have any core invention behind them. Mark Shuttleworth actually lives in the Isle of Man now (not to mention Elon Musk...) and most South Africans probably don't know what Canonical is.
By contrast, if you already have a solid business in South Africa, your expansion potential is almost limitless. There are about 60 million people and most of them are below the age of 30 [3]. The youth unemployment rate, defined as unemployment of people between the age of 18 and I think 35, is usually around 60%. You also have, depending on who rates it, 7/10 of the top 10 universities in Africa as of 2020 [4]. You don't have to pay people with degrees a lot of money for it to be considered a high salary by global—especially American—standards.
[1] Norsk Data was caught off guard by the PC revolution, which had one big across hardware OS; Nokia didn't realise the importance of smartphones with one big across brand OS, apart from the iPhone. (Though I am still waiting for Linux Phone OS.)
[2] Nokia started off as a pulp mill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia#1865%E2%80%931967
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Africa#A...
[4] QS rates only nine universities in Africa, here is a pastebin as their website is difficult to navigate: https://pastebin.com/raw/ixLJ0Lqq. This means that the 10th university and below are not in the world top 500. It is quite likely that the University of Potchefstroom would be the 10th. Some sources claim 8/10 of the top 10, but I don't know which agency's ratings that is based on.