The planet’s population is unprecedentedly young and embracing technology. But even as people are living better, they ask for equity and respect. Technology gives them new tools to achieve it. The mobile phone — our era’s great technology device — is unshackling billions around the world from lives once confined by ignorance and isolation.

Empowered citizens with Facebook on their phones are taking action — redefining relative political power in places like Tunisia and Egypt. As this interconnected throng remakes the geopolitical landscape, it could begin to change our very definition of democracy. In companies, too, individual workers are gaining power relative to leaders.

At Techonomy, we believe the empowerment of individuals is progress in itself. But it unalterably transforms the landscape for business and government, and all of us need to understand how.