SDG 9 in European Literature

NEDJELJKO FABRIO:Vježbanje života
Ovaj povijesni roman prikazuje nastanak jednoga golemog industrijskog i lučkoga središta, hrvatskoga grada Rijeke.
Priča je to o inovacijama, razvoju industrije i infrastrukture, ali i o egzistencijalnoj drami obitelji koja se nalazi u samome središtu složenih povijesnih procesa.

This historical novel shows the emergence of a huge industrial and port center, the Croatian city of Rijeka. It is a story of innovation, the development of industry and infrastructure, but also of the existential drama of a family at the heart of complex historical processes.

POLAND
STANISŁAW LEM

On March 27, 2006, Stanisław Lem died one of the greatest science-fiction writers in the world, philosopher, futurologist and critic. He is the most frequently translated Polish author - his books have been published in over 40 languages. He was extremely valued not only in Poland, but also abroad. His books have sold over 30 million copies Some of the fans and connoisseurs of Lem's literature claim that he was a brilliant clairvoyant. Many of his texts can be regarded as a forecast for the future, especially in terms of technology development. So what did Lem manage to predict?

Network - Internet
The theme of the network, which includes many machines working together and thus increasing their efficiency, appears many times in Lem's works. He wrote about it in "Astronauts" and also "Dialogues", where he claimed that as a result of the gradual fusion of all IT machines and memory banks, continental and then even planetary computer networks would be created, and that this is the most realistic direction of development ("Dialogues ", 1957). Stanisław Lem wrote about the concept of the Internet in the late 1950s, and the beginnings of the network date back to the late 1960s, which is almost 10 years later! In the novel "The Magellanic Cloud" people have universal access to a gigantic database, which they use in their homes using small devices that act as receivers. The description of the Internet as a source of information and small routers located in our homes clearly proves how visionary Lem proved to be in his predictions

Smartphones
In the same book, Lem described an early version of a smartphone, i.e. a small portable TV enabling instant access to data from the Trion Library. The next excerpt from the "Magellanic Cloud" could very well be a reprint from the modern press:
We are using it today without thinking about the efficiency and power of this huge, invisible network that surrounds the globe; whether in his Australian studio, in the lunar observatory, or on the plane - how many times each of us reached for the pocket receiver, calling the central office of the Trion Library, exchanged the desired work, to have it in front of us on the TV screen in a second. Nobody even wonders that thanks to the excellence of the devices, any trion can be used by any number of recipients at the same time, without disturbing each other in the least.
The description is surprising, and maybe even terrifyingly relevant today, and many airlines now offer Wi-Fi access on board. It is worth remembering that these ideas arose in Lem's mind at a time when the average computer was only in a really large room. The very idea of the internet sprouted in the brains of researchers in the late 1960s, and it only materialized two decades later.