TAD Consortium May 2000 Information Update 4

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CONTENTS

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ONLINE RESOURCES
- "Readiness for the Networked World: A Guide for Developing Countries" 

ARTICLES
- Digital divide isn’t the real issue

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ONLINE RESOURCES

I am pleased to inform you of the Information Technologies Group's latest publication, "Readiness for the Networked World: A Guide for Developing Countries".  We have designed the Guide to be a practical tool that will help to spur dialogue and cooperative action in addressing Digital Divide issues in the developing world. It is available online at http://www.readinessguide.org

With the dual ends of gaining the most extensive audience possible for the Guide and getting valuable feedback on it, we encourage you to use and share the Guide's contents widely. The more leaders in business, government, NGOs and the community-at-large that the Guide reaches, the greater its impact can be.

In order to make the Guide more accessible in the developing world, we are intent on localizing both the printed version and the website into many more languages in the near future.  Please contact us if you are interested in participating in or supporting this important process.

If you have any questions or require any assistance in applying the Guide to your own or another particular community, please do not hesitate to contact us. We also welcome any feedback you may have on the Guide itself. Please respond to eDevelop@ksg.harvard.edu

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ARTICLES

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The San Jose Mercury News April 29, 2000

DIGITAL DIVIDE ISN'T THE REAL ISSUE

By Dan Gillmor

The digital divide? Enough, already.

By all means, let's put computers and Internet connections in the homes of the poor and lower middle class, and in the classrooms of their communities' schools. Almost no one would dispute that digital technology has value, or that access to networks is a good thing.

But let's stop pretending that we've solved all that much when we run some wiring through the crumbling walls of a public school on a Saturday morning, hooking up a few 2-year-old PCs. All we've done is install hardware, the easy part of the job.

We'd better get honest, sooner than later, about the divisions that don't lend themselves to simplistic solutions. We'd better confront the crises that reflect this nation's often skewed priorities -- including the corrosive disconnections of race, wealth, class, values and more.

I have news for the digital divide mavens, anyway. Technology's relentless progress is solving the equipment part of this gap, faster than is generally recognized.

Moore's Law, the doubling of processing power roughly every 18 months, means that computers will soon be as cheap and ubiquitous as telephones and televisions. The availability and speed of network connections, meanwhile, continues to zoom ahead. There will always be some people and locations that need special help, but the affordability of the gear isn't going to be a problem much longer.

Computers and networks have little or no utility for people who are semi-literate. Yet this society has willfully abandoned public-school children by refusing to provide them with the kind of education they need in a world where brains mean vastly more than brawn. The rhetoric from those who'd improve education is inspiring, but their actions are largely more of the same old stuff, and another generation of kids goes by the board.

The computer is a fine tool for the literate. But it does little to mitigate the damage from a value system where money matters more than anything and where we've voted with our collective wallets for moral sludge in art and entertainment.

Computers and networks are race-neutral. But a home PC doesn't counteract racist laws or prevent the police from stopping motorists because of their skin color.

I'm a huge fan of information technology. Computers and networks have become proxies for the stunning energy and entrepreneurship that has been transforming our economy. They're at the heart of changes that will ultimately roil every kind of business and activity.

People who can use computers are more employable, more able to get jobs that pay above the minimum wage. They can use the networks to communicate with others in useful ways, to draw on knowledge. They can organize. They can help people save money -- for example, by shopping smarter for cars and other items where knowledge goes a long way.

I'm not going to doubt the public-spirited motives of Silicon Valley executives who want to contribute to the wiring of East Palo Alto, or who donate their companies' products and, in some cases, time, to closing the technological divide. Any act that does anything to improve a community deserves applause.

But we all need to look in our hearts and see if we're doing what's most useful, in our homes as well as our communities. We need to ask ourselves tough questions.

This is genuinely a revolution, and it's transforming us in many ways. Operating on Internet Time has meant a loss of time to reflect on our actions and encouraged an anything-goes business climate where speed -- not ethics or long-term planning -- is paramount. Maybe a winner-take-all world is inevitable. But are we even asking the question?

The divisions between the powerful and the dispossessed have never been greater. Will computers widen the chasm or bridge it?

The television became the baby-sitter for millions of children during the past several decades. Is a computer any better?

Several weeks ago, I gave a luncheon speech to a local Kiwanis organization. The final question from the audience was about the digital divide and how I saw it.

I replied with some of what I've written here. I also posed this hypothetical: Suppose, on a random evening, you have a choice between plunking your kid in front of a computer or sitting with her and reading a book together. Read the book, I said.

Let's solve our most urgent problems, and the digital divide will solve itself.

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Telematics for African Development Consortium
P.O. Box 31822
Braamfontein
2017
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel: +27 +11 403-2813
Fax: +27 +11 403-2814
neilshel@icon.co.za
www.saide.org.za

* To view an archive of previous updates visit:
www.saide.org.za/tad/archive.htm

* For resources on distance education and technology use in Southern Africa visit:
www.saide.org.za/worldbank/Default.htm

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