Bridging the Digital Divide in Uganda

This video shows the impact and positive changes a community in uganda has after receiving a telecenter with phone, fax and a couple of computer. A lot of people in that community takes advantage of these resources. The farmer looks up information on how to be more productive with her land and crops, the bicycle repair man orders parts from distributors over the internet and kids have more access to books in their native language.

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Sources on Digital Divide

http://www.digitaldivide.org/harvardmit.html

One of the best websites with information about Digital Divide and the action taken by some organizations.

http://news.cnet.com/2010-1071-858537.html

This article offers information about the digital divide and the 21st century civil rights movement

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/race-culture-and-the-digital-divide/#

This site offers a conservative point of view on the "myths" of the digital divide

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/net/net.html

Resources on multicultural technology education. The site also offers tool and guides for instructors

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/digital-divide.html

This site explains the different stages of digital divide. Very interesting take on the subject.

http://www.itu.int/wsis/tunis/newsroom/stats/

global statistics of access to computers and cellular telephone services

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-09-05-digital-divide_x.htm

This article talk about the access to internet among white and minority students.

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/cib/2001-02/02cib01.htm

Digital Divide in rural australia, its impacts and economic development.

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-divide-where-we-are-today

This site has information about how to bridge the gap in the digital divide.

http://www.nepalnews.com/main/index.php/-guestcolumn/3808-re-conceptualizing-digital-divide.html

Article about the re-conceptualization of the digital divide in Nepal communities.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/canadas-digital-divide/article1521631/?cmpid=rss1

Digital Dive in Canada.

http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/the-developing-digital-divide.html

Article about projects to bridge the digital divide gap in bangladesh, sri lanka and nigeria

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3005493.stm

Article about the digital divide and rural communities of the united kingdom.

http://rsj.e-contentmanagement.com/archives/vol/12/issue/3/article/1295/the-rural-digital-divide

more information about the digital divide in Australia

http://www.idrc.ca/panasia/ev-117803-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

intersection of gender and digital divide in pakistan.

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Race and the Digital Divide

I found some statistics about race and the digital divide in the US. These statistics are from a study done at UC Santa Cruz in 2003. Data shows how certain ethnic groups are more likely to have a computer at home and/or access to the internet. Here are some of the statistics that caught my attention.

• Language is an important determinant of computer ownership and Internet use even after controlling for education, family income and immigrant status. Spanish-speaking Latinos, especially Mexicans, have strikingly low rates of computer ownership and home Internet use.
• The Digital Divide is large and does not appear to be disappearing soon. Blacks and Latinos are much less likely to have access to home computers than are white, non-Latinos (50.6 and 48.7 percent compared to 74.6 percent). They are also less likely to have Internet access at home (40.5 and 38.1 percent compared to 67.3 percent).
• Among Latino groups, Mexicans have the lowest home computer and Internet access rates followed by Central and South Americans who have the next lowest rates. Although Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Other Latinos have higher rates, all Latino groups are less likely to own a computer or have Internet access at home than are white, non-Latinos.
• Income differences are partly, but not entirely responsible for ethnic and racial disparities in computer and Internet access. Even among individuals with family incomes of at least $60,000, blacks and Latinos are substantially less likely to own a computer or have Internet access at home than are whites.
• Roughly 1 out of 7 blacks and 1 out of 8 Latinos subscribe to broadband at home, compared to 26.1 percent of whites. One third of Asians and roughly 1 out of 8 Native Americans have broadband at home.

While the study did not provided any evidence of institutional racism being in correlation with access to technology, these stats did shows how different communities have access to computers. Another thing that the study failed to clarify is that these communities did not have computers because they could not benefit from one. For example, the study found that many families of color that make about $60,000 a year did not have computers at home. These middle class american families are able to afford a computer, but it is unclear why they do not have one.

Source: http://www.freepress.net/files/lccrdigitaldivide.pdf

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Project to bridge the digital divide in rural areas

I want to share this video because I thought it was very interesting to see the economic and educational impact of technology in a small rural town in Honduras. The people of the town have experience a lot of benefits from having electricity, phone lines and computers in their community.

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History of Digital Divide

The Digital Divide is simply defined as the gap between the rich people who benefit from the access to technology and the poor who do not benefit as much from access to technology (if they have any). One very important fact to not is that this gap is expanded because technology companies way to make profit. They believe that making solutions for the rich is profitable, while making solutions for the poor is not as profitable, because the poor cant pay for the technology.

Another important thing to note is that in certain parts of the world, technology brings more problems than solutions. For example, in a rural community in the middle east, a kid might stop going to school because the local cyber cafe has video-games in their computers. In this case, the access of technology is not benefiting this kid, or the community he lives on. This fact created a bigger gap in technology in the late 90's.

The term was used first before the 80's rarely. It was until the early 90's when the technology boom began with the access to personal computers. President Clinton and Vice President Gore first used the term in a speech in 1996, when the then technology adviser of the Clinton administration took notice on the problems of inequalities surrounding the digital divide. During the passage of the US Telecommunications act in 1996, Digital Divide became a term of friction between the public sector and the private sector. This happened Mainly because the private sector wanted the government to subsidize technology in order to drop prices of technology and make it more accessible. The public sector argued that technology companies should pay for the cost of bringing the poor into the information society.

Sources:

http://www.digitaldivide.org/history.html

http://www.dbfboston.org/index.html

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Digital Divide

For my blog, I am going to focus on the topic of digital divide. I learned about the topic a little while ago when I was exploring different forms of global inequality. In short, digital divide is the inequality of the distribution, access to and learning how to use technology and digital information (Computers and internet access, for example). The biggest factors that play a role in the digital divide are economic status, education level and geographical location. Societies with more access to technology are more capable of advancing economically and competing globally. I hope to understand more of this topic as I learn more about global inequality in my class.

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