Written by Dr. David Foster, CEO
Teddy Roosevelt is attributed with saying: “The more we know about the past, the better prepared we are for the future.” In accordance with this wisdom, I am going to take you on a journey into the past in hopes we can gain insight into where both test security, and the testing industry as a whole, is headed.
Innovation and Invention
Let’s start by looking at technology that was introduced at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1903, the Wright Brothers demonstrated the first flight of a heavier-than-air craft. In 1908, Henry Ford introduced the first mass-produced automobile that was affordable to most Americans. In 1917 wall-mounted phones were introduced and telephone technology was developing rapidly.
These inventions, and dozens of others from this same time period, were early versions of technology that we rely on today. In their wildest dreams, the inventors could not have seen how their inventions would evolve over time to fit society’s needs. Alexander Graham Bell could never have imagined that his telephone would evolve from a wall-mounted box to a hand-held computer, and the Wright Brothers would be astonished at how air travel is now taken for granted as a method for commuting to business meetings. Society’s needs changed, and these forms of technology adapted to meet them. The result is that nowadays, we cannot imagine life without ……