Digital Divide
05 September 2008
Widening broadband's reach OECD Observer
Many broadband users may find the wind has gone out of their sails, especially if they live in rural areas. What are the solutions?
The next several billion internet users OECD Observer
Only a fifth of the world's population currently has access to the Internet. That figure should be increased.
29 August 2008
Brazil: Digital inclusion, but how? CNet
At one end of the trendy Cafe Aprendiz, patrons enjoy dishes such as three-cheese ravioli and salmon salad with cucumber, but it's not the food that has drawn a group of older women seated in the back. They've come for the computers.
26 August 2008
Low cost Internet phone revolution beckons for India Sydney Morning Herald
Battle lines are being drawn after India's telecoms regulator called for full-blown telephone services via the Internet, paving the way for another fall in the nation's already cheap call rates.
23 August 2008
The digital war on poverty by Jeffrey Sachs The Guardian
Thanks to market forces, even the world's poorest people are beginning to benefit from the flow of digital information
18 August 2008
Last piece of fibre-optic jigsaw falls into place as cable links east Africa to grid The Guardian
They are the arteries of the modern world. Stretching for tens of thousands of miles over the ocean beds, the vast web of intercontinental submarine cables have brought the possibility of cheap high-speed internet and clear long-distance telephone calls to all major parts of the globe. Except one.
30 July 2008
Mobile Phones and the Digital Divide PC World
Whether you're building an application for the 3G iPhone in the United States or trying to figure out how to deliver health information via SMS (Short Message Service) to a rural community in Botswana, the mobile space is diverse and exciting in equal measure.
06 July 2008
Effective regulatory framework to spur investment in Africa ITU
African regulators and policy makers met in Dakar, Senegal to address the challenges of connecting Africa to information and communication technologies. Achieving connectivity is seen as a catalyst for achieving the broader targets of the Millennium Development Goals.
18 June 2008
Cash in hand: why Africans are banking on the mobile phone - The dramatic spread of the handset is revolutionising the way money circulates The Guardian
For consumers in developed markets, using a mobile phone for banking services is a smart add-on to a bank's branch network. But to people in the developing world, the arrival of mobile banking - or m-banking - is potentially revolutionary.
Mobility key in continent lacking fixed-phone infrastructure The Guardian
Africa has become extremely attractive to mobile phone companies because of its sheer potential for growth. As markets in Europe and the US reach saturation point, competition and regulatory pressure has forced prices lower, so some of the world's largest players are looking for new markets in which to expand.
13 June 2008
Bridging the Global Digital Divide, One Laptop at a Time Knowledge@Wharton
... One thing is certain, however: The third world is the next frontier for technology companies and non-profit organizations alike. The goal: Bridge the global digital divide that separates wealthy and poor countries. Non-profits such as One Laptop per Child see technology as a way to improve education.
11 June 2008
Africa: Why Continent is So Digitally Isolated The Nation
Imagine a major research university with tens of thousands of students trying to access the Internet through a single US household connection. That is the present situation in most African universities. Students there have access to Science through several journal archives for the developing world. In practice, most could never download it.
09 June 2008
The rise of the low-cost laptop The Economist
In November 2005, at the World Summit on the Information Society conference in Tunisia, Nicholas Negroponte, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, unveiled a small, cute, lime-green computer. The "$100 laptop" caused quite a stir among those interested in economic development. Dr Negroponte and his non-profit venture, One Laptop Per Child, hoped that the combination of clever design and the scale efficiencies of manufacturing would make it possible to make the laptops for $100 each. Governments in the developing world, he predicted, would order millions of the laptops and give them to schoolchildren, triggering a revolution in education. ... But in one respect the XO Laptop has undoubtedly made an impact: by helping to spawn a new market for low-cost laptops.
02 June 2008
Mobile telecoms: Halfway there - Promoting mobile phones to the world's poorest The Economist
Sometime in the next few months, the number of mobile phones in use will exceed 3.3 billion, or half the world's population. No technology has ever spread faster around the globe: the mobile phone took less than two decades to reach this degree of penetration. But the ever-restless wireless industry has already set its sights on getting the other half connected. Two recent reports analyse how to add the "next billion" to the subscriber list.
29 May 2008
W3C hopes mobile will bring internet to the masses vnunet
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is inviting interested parties to take part in a new group established to try to help tackle the digital divide issue.
28 May 2008
Lack of computer access puts Pacific islanders at a disadvantage People's Daily Online
Increasing the pace of computer literacy in grade schools throughout the Pacific is an essential, and currently largely missing, ingredient for Pacific islanders to take advantage of the revolution in telecommunications sweeping the globe.
26 May 2008
UN's information technology alliance to focus on major concerns United Nations
A leading United Nations body working to spread the benefits of information technology should concentrate on the areas that most concern people around the world, the chair of that body said today.
UN telecommunication official warns of widening Internet broadband divide United Nations
With more than half of the world's population now becoming mobile telephone subscribers the digital divide in such phones has been largely bridged, but there remains a widening risk of an Internet broadband divide, the head of the United Nations agency for telecommunication warned today.
Least developed countries need low-cost computers, expert tells UN meeting United Nations
Mobile phones were not the solution to the problems of least developed countries, an information and communication technologies (ICT) expert said today at a United Nations meeting in Kuala Lumpur that brought together 150 participants from around the world.
23 May 2008
Mobile web will split world in two vnunet
Businesses may be forced to deal with two separate tiers of mobile internet, as the technology gap between developing and developed countries grows.
Fears of UK digital divide groundless as online access soars in rural areas The Guardian
A hunger for online shopping, internet banking, online entertainment and email has given rural Britain the lead in the race to install broadband, with the number of homes with high-speed connections in isolated areas overtaking those in urban areas for the first time.
17 May 2008
Microsoft is joining low-cost laptop project International Herald Tribune
After years of conflict, Microsoft and the computing and education project One Laptop Per Child, have reached an agreement that will put Windows on the organization's computers.
16 May 2008
Africa making progress in Internet access Reuters
Improving Internet access in Africa is a fight on several fronts -- building undersea cables, setting up regional exchanges and bridging the last mile to homes and businesses -- but the continent is making progress.
15 May 2008
Africans Change the Face of Mobility PC World
Mobile money transfers, payments, how to charge customers and e-health are some of the areas where the rest of the world can look to Africa for inspiration.
14 May 2008
Africa on the move, but challenges remain InfoWorld
The number of mobile connections has risen to 282 million, an increase of 70 million, in the last 12 months. Improved coverage has added another 46 million potential customers, according to GSMA.
