This post was originally published on Data Center Knowledge
In a school courtyard on the outskirts of Hanoi, students gather around their phones as a teacher streams the day’s lesson. Their connection, powered by a local 5G network, is faster than the fixed broadband serving many European homes. To traditional economists, Vietnam remains an emerging market. Yet in new digital-economy data, it represents something more dynamic: a country where capability and confidence are advancing faster than the tools long used to track prosperity.
We are measuring progress wrong because our tools were built for an era when productivity meant physical output, not digital participation. GDP remains the backbone of economic analysis, yet it tells only part of the story, capturing production but not how connectivity, skills, and trust transform that production.
That gap is what the Digital Economy Navigator 2025 (DEN 2025), developed by the Digital Cooperation Organization, aims to close. Built on 145 indicators across 80 economies covering 94% of global GDP, the Navigator measures how people and institutions convert connectivity into capability.
The DEN measures the breadth and depth of economic activity that is reliant on, significantly enhanced by, or enabled through, digital technologies and their applications. This holistic approach encompasses private sector services and goods delivered via digital channels,
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