Google chairman Eric Schmidt is taking some heat for making a big, bold claim about the growth of the Internet.
He tweeted this:
"For every person online, there are two who are not. By the end of the decade, everyone on Earth will be connected. #NewDigitalAge
— Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt) April 13, 2013"
In other words, he believes that in just seven years, the Internet will be accessible even in the parts of the world with no electricity that are struggling with far more basic things, like clean water.
There's an outpouring of comments on his Google+ account where he posted the same thought. While some love the lofty goal, others disbelieve.
As Alex Onoiu succinctly replied on Google+: "What is this nonsense? There are 1 billion people not yet connected to food."
Yet, it's not as far-fetched as it sounds. For instance, Google supports a project called GEEKS Without Frontiers which is creating low-cost technology to bring wireless Internet to places where traditional wired Internet isn't possible.
Samsung is working on a project that has turned old shipping containers into solar-powered, Internet-connected classrooms for kids in Africa, with the plan of serving 2.5 million students by 2015.
And that's only two projects. While it's hard to believe that every person in the world will have access to the Internet by 2020, many more of them will.
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