Digital Divide
14 May 2008
Africa fastest growing market in communication technology, says UN United Nations
Africa has been the fastest growing market worldwide in communication technology over the past three years and will continue to emerge as an important market for the industry, according to the head of the United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
11 May 2008
Digital divide a threat to Indonesia's unity: president The Age
The yawning divide between the haves and the have-nots of the digital revolution is a "threat to national unity" and even world security, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Friday.
01 May 2008
Rural Australians missing out on broadband The Age
The digital divide appears to be growing, with less than a quarter of rural communities having access to high-speed internet, according to a recent report by the Bureau of Rural Sciences.
26 April 2008
One in five Britons don't know how to use email The Times
Despite widepsread broadband and mobile coverage, the digital divide in Britain is still significant, a report suggests
19 April 2008
ICTs in Africa: Digital Divide to Digital Opportunity International Telecommunications Union
The contribution that communications play in the development process has been clearly demonstrated. Improving access to ICTs has significant socio-economic implications which is why improved connectivity to close the gap between the haves and have-nots is such an important step towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals. ICTs and their contribution to areas such as distance learning, telemedicine, and e-governance result in healthier, more literate populations better positioned to actively participate and advance national economies. ITU is committed to transforming the digital divide into a digital opportunity for all.
18 April 2008
ITU Nets $55 Billion for Connect Africa Launch PC World
The launch of Connect Africa has raised US$55 billion in project funding, according to the secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union, Hamadoun Touré.
16 April 2008
Mobile Phones Play Role in Zimbabwe PC World
It's well-known that mobile phones are revolutionizing communications across the globe, particularly in developing countries where landline infrastructure is lacking in many rural and urban areas. They are the only means of communication for hundreds of millions of people, and have opened up economic opportunities for their owners, who can use them to find out about job openings, advertise services, or operate complementary businesses such as charging phone batteries.
13 April 2008
Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty? New York Times
If you need to reach Jan Chipchase, the best, and sometimes only, way to get him is on his cellphone. The first time I spoke to him last fall, he was at home in his apartment in Tokyo. The next time, he was in Accra, the capital of Ghana, in West Africa. Several weeks after that, he was in Uzbekistan, by way of Tajikistan and China, and in short order he and his phone visited Helsinki, London and Los Angeles. If you decide not to call Jan Chipchase but rather to send e-mail, the odds are fairly good that you'll get an "out of office" reply redirecting you back to his cellphone, with a notation about his current time zone -- "GMT 9" or "GMT -8" -- so that when you do call, you may do so at a courteous hour.
us: Folks below the 'digital divide' would use the Internet more if they had it, research suggests Cornell University Chronicle
There is still a "digital divide." Rich people are connected to the Internet more than poor people, and some worry that this creates an "electronic underclass" unable to access important services. Subsidies to help low-income households get online have been suggested.
Study finds digital divide in Qatar society The Peninsula
There exists a wide technological divide between children and their parents in Qatari society. Though many e-education initiatives are technologically and pedagogically effective, children may not enroll because of parental anxiety, says Qatar's Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008.
11 April 2008
Africa Goes Wireless Huffington Post
Naabala is a traditional East African Maasai warrior. He has a bright red shukha blanket draped over his shoulder and a baton-like weapon, called a conga, tucked in his belt. As we walk together, his many necklaces jangle as he tells us about his first lion hunt - at the age of 16 - stopping only to show us which plants cure fever and which ones are poisonous.
02 April 2008
330 Million Africans Will Own Cellphones in 2008 AllAfrica.com
Africa is projected to experience a 22 per cent jump in its mobile phone subscriber base during 2008, with the number of people owning a phone increasing from the current 270 million to 330 million.
31 March 2008
Joocing the Next Billion Internet Users Business Week
It's a conundrum that the best and brightest of the tech industry haven't yet solved: how to get computers to the "next billion" customers in developing countries. The highest-profile effort to date, called One Laptop Per Child, has run into a series of setbacks . Spearheaded by digital guru Nicholas Negroponte, the U.N.-supported program envisions equipping millions of children in Africa, Asia, and Latin America with innovative $100 laptops. But demand for the devices has been lower than expected, in part because they still cost nearly twice their intended price.
26 March 2008
"Digital Skills Divide" Emerging
A new study from Tufts University shows that while the "digital divide" may be narrowing in terms of access to the Internet, a significant "digital skills divide" is emerging. "Parents' access to childrearing information appears to be on the rise, in large measure because of the Web," said Professor Fred Rothbaum from the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University.
22 March 2008
Intel: Classmate PC appeals beyond kids in developed countries ComputerWorld
Intel Corp.'s Classmate PC isn't just for students in emerging markets anymore. The low-cost laptop will be made available to companies that want to sell it to consumers, an Intel executive said Wednesday.
15 March 2008
An ICT revolution in Papua New Guinea The National
A quiet revolution is taking place in Papua New Guinea which promises to bring about massive development to our beloved country. This is the development of what is known as PNGARNet, short for Papua New Guinea Academic and Research Network, which is being spearheaded by our universities, in particular the Divine Word University in Madang.
11 March 2008
Could the internet be Africa's saviour? by Andrew Keen The Independent
... We-Think [is] likely to be the most controversial book about the internet to be published in Britain this year. ... The internet will revolutionise innovation, Charles Leadbeater argues in We-Think. Collaborative websites will transform innovation from a selfish, individual preoccupation in to the socially responsible activity of the community. The internet will prioritise public interest over individual interest. The old Cartesian principle of "I think therefore I am" will be replaced by the communitarian credo of "We-Think therefore we are". The consequences of this technological revolution on the future of capitalism, private property, the law and politics will be epochal, Leadbeater promises us.
07 March 2008
Indian rural-urban digital divide widens Yahoo
The gap between rural and urban India is widening as far as teledensity is concerned. When telecom boom started rural India had a teledensity of just four per cent compared to urban India's 20 per cent.
05 March 2008
Attacking the great digital divide in Australia's outback The Age
It is transforming the world. But is it leaving indigenous Australia behind? Cynthia Karena travelled to the Northern Territory to investigate the digital divide in our Australia's backyard.
01 March 2008
Web desktop targets 'cybernomads' BBC
A virtual desktop aimed at users who access the web via cybercafes is attracting interest from organisations set up to bridge the digital divide. Offered by Luxembourg-based start-up Jooce, it is being billed as a way of personalising any computer.
27 February 2008
Africa: Works On Nepad Internet Cable Set to Start Soon The Monitor
Africa's dream to have faster and cheaper internet connections like the West is now closer to reality. This follows the approval of the Kigali Protocol on policy and regulatory framework for development of the New Partnership for Africa's Development, Nepad's Information and Communication Technology Broadband Infrastructure Network (NBIN), by Malawi last week.
15 February 2008
Technology in emerging economies: Of internet cafés and power cuts The Economist
Within a few months China will overtake America as the country with the world's largest number of internet users. Even when you factor in China's size and its astonishing rate of GDP growth, this will be a remarkable achievement for what remains a poor economy. For the past three years China has also been the world's largest exporter of information and communications technology. It already has the same number of mobile-phone users (500m) as the whole of Europe.
Technology and development: The limits of leapfrogging The Economist
Mobile phones are frequently held up as a good example of technology's ability to transform the fortunes of people in the developing world. In places with bad roads, few trains and parlous land lines, mobile phones substitute for travel, allow price data to be distributed more quickly and easily, enable traders to reach wider markets and generally make it easier to do business. The mobile phone is also a wonderful example of a "leapfrog" technology: it has enabled developing countries to skip the fixed-line technology of the 20th century and move straight to the mobile technology of the 21st. Surely other technologies can do the same?
08 February 2008
Crime fears as cheap PCs head for Africa The Guardian
What if the plans to spread low-cost One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and Intel Classmate computers to the developing world work? What if in a few years there are hundreds of millions of them out there? Many might applaud. But among computer security experts, there's growing concern that those scheme could inadvertently lead to a huge increase in computer crime.
Rich-poor "digital divide" still broad, says UNCTAD Reuters
The digital divide between rich and poor countries is narrowing as mobile phones and Internet use become more available, but the developing world still lags far behind, a United Nations report said on Wednesday. Also includes a link to Mobile phone technology vital to growth in the developing world (The Guardian).
