Technology occasions
World Telecommunication and Information Society Day on 17 May, what it marks, and what to write on a day about connectivity rather than gadgets.
One day: World Telecommunication and Information Society Day on 17 May.
The date is the founding of the International Telegraph Union in 1865, which makes it one of the oldest anniversaries in the international calendar. The ITU sets a theme each year, and it is usually about access rather than technology: who is still offline, and why.
The Indian context is the interesting part
India has one of the largest internet user bases in the world and, at the same time, a very large number of people who are not connected at all. The gap runs along familiar lines: rural against urban, women against men, and the states that got fibre early against the ones that did not.
That gap is the subject worth writing about on 17 May. It is more useful than a post about how far technology has come.
What to write
If you work in the industry, the honest version names something your team built and who it reached, with a number.
If you are writing to someone, the personal version works better: the person who taught a parent to video call, the teacher who ran classes off one phone during school closures, the shop that started taking UPI and never looked back.
For other days in this area, National Technology Day on 11 May and World Creativity and Innovation Day sit in the professional category, and Engineers' Day in September honours the people who build the infrastructure.