Finland and Ireland overall top amongst all countries in Good Country Index (UK top for Science and Technology)

Whilst doing some revision I saw this TED talk that was shared on my feed. It talks about which country does the most good for the whole world.

This isn’t about how well a country is doing but how much they are doing.

The ‘good’ in this context refers to the ‘common good’, as in opposite to selfish not the opposite of ‘bad’. It isn’t making moral measurements but tries to measure as much as possible how a country contributes to the common good (to the world, not just their own citizens).

One thing I’ve noticed from the posts looking back at Nokia from other major tech sites was that fondness they had over Nokia because it seemed to be one of the ‘good guys’ and had an ethos that stood for something good (As well as fighting for being more green and giving humanitarian aid) . It seems that this was part and parcel of Finnish culture. The list isn’t about money, but about attitude (Simon Anholt, creator of the list, notes Kenya in the top 30).

The Good Country Index has 35 ‘reliable’ datasets, in 7 categories (5 points each) education, science, war and peace, trade, culture, health, censorship, the environment, freedom etc.

Ireland is at the top but it’s worth noting that Finland had the same score as Ireland. The reason they’re number 2 because their lowest score was slightly lower than Ireland. Kudos still to these two and well any country that tries to look out for others as well as itself.

The creators recognise that their results may still be a bit patchy. It’s therefore an incomplete picture but it’s a start. This data is a combination of years but mostly from 2010 and is the closest portrait for the world of today.

There’s a whole host of other things to consider, so it’s worth checking out: http://www.goodcountry.org/faq.

Finland has a fair few patents relative to the size of the country – Nokia is one of the largest patent owners in the mobile space as they had so much research and development.

In terms of purely looking at Science and Technology, Number 1 was United Kingdom. My Uni (Manchester) is quite proud of its Science and Tech, calling itself ‘The Home of Graphene‘. This was one of the materials that Nokia was (is?) invested in and was portrayed as a defining component in their concept ‘Nokia Morph’.

Category: Nokia