THE INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL DIVIDE

1. THE INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL DIVIDE As we embark upon a technological revolution, likely to rival even the industrial revolution in terms of its span, we begin to observe disparities in knowledge of technology and access to resources in racial, age, and employment demographics. The purpose of this presentation is to extrapolate from statistical data, the width of the gap between “haves” and “have nots,” internationally,with respect to Internet and computer access and usage. We will also discuss how the demographics of income and urban versus rural habitation contribute to the divide. In addition to defining and analyzing the digital divide, we will spend a sizable portion of this presentation discussing solutions to this problem, both internationally proposed and indigenous.

2. RAMIFICATIONS OF THE DIVIDE: EXTENDING TO THE BASICS • The fracture line of the international digital divide represents far greater inequalities than persons in developed countries are probably. For example, currently more than 60% of the world population has made a phone call -- let a lone “surf the net.” • The international digital divide prevents even the most basic forms of Information/Technology (IT) from taking root in developed countries. Without an adequate technology foundation, or knowledge of its usage, adversely affected nations will continue to the left behind as their developed counterparts continue to improve. • As the world enters and era were an international populous will be divide into the “knowledge rich” and “knowledge poor,” the democratization and information dissemination potential of the Internet is severely compromised, as only people with access to the Internet and the know how to exploit it optimally will be privy to benefits it offers.

3. The Numbers Speak for Themselves • A 1999 study concerning the phone line and Internet access of Eastern European countries uncovered startling results • Solvenia emerged as the technological leader of post-communist Eastern European countries with 27% per capita phone line access and 502 Internet users per 10,000 • Second place was awarded to Slovakia, which also had a 27% per capita phone line access rate, but the state’s Internet access per capital fell to of 186 per 10,000, dramatic drop-off from Slovenia’s low numbers • In last place in a field of 22 states was Moldova, attaining only a 21% phone line access rate, and a staggeringly low Internet access rate of 0.47 persons per 10,000, or 0.0047%. • Keep in mind, the United States has a phone line access rate over over 95%, and an internet access rate 41.5%. Slovenia will not be opening champagne bottles in celebration any time soon, as much work remains.

4. WEALTH & GEOGRAPHY MATTERS • In the United States, which has the highest income per capita in the world, families earning more than $60,000 per year have an Internet access rate of 61.5%, substantially higher than the 41.5% rate for the nation as a whole • In Australia, individuals living in rural areas and earning in access of $50,000 per year are more than twice as likely to won a computer and three times as likely to have internet access • By stark contrast, in Africa, which is predominantly rural and poor, there exist 14 million phone line, which is fewer than in Manhattan or Tokyo. It is profoundly easier to place a phone call from Kenya to New York, than to place the same call from Kenya to another location in Kenya. • However, efforts taking aim at bridging the digital divide, by many actors and in many forms, are underway...

5. Governments are Addressing Cost Issues • The Information Society Index (ISI) measures the extent to which a country, as a whole, is connected to the Internet, and shows and shows how much countries spend on IT. In addition, the ISI uses 23 variables to rank countries according to IT spending and social inclusion, which is the extent to which the population as a whole benefits from public IT expenditures. • The ISI concluded that Scandinavian countries have less of a digital divide then other developed states. Sweden ranked first with the highest a 61% rate of home Internet connections A large part of this is a attributable to governmental spending. • However, public spending to bridge the digital divide in Scandinavian countries is no anomaly, as the public sector, at least in part, is generally responsible for providing the infrastructures necessary to have an information-based society.

6. Characteristics of a Bridging Digital Divide • The general pattern established by the ISI suggest that governments with strong inclinations toward social welfare, for example, devoting large amounts of their GDP to transfer payments, have the lowest levels of IT inequalities. • It should be noted that the Scandinavian countries previously mentioned have small populations and plentiful resources, while countries with low ISI ranks tend to have large populations and limited resources. From this on can extrapolate that demographic characteristics which measure the overall wealth of a country are also leading indicators of the extent to which the digital divide will affect the country. • Not surprisingly Internet usage is most highly concentrated in smaller Nordic countries, the Anglo-American and English-Speaking world, and in the Asian Tiger economies.

7. Positive Attitude, Positive Results • Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries philosophies pertaining to the Internet converge on many viewpoints: • The Internet offers is a key tool for development and offers many benefits. • The Internet can help countries leapfrog stages of development from industry directly into service economies. • IT infrastructure can help governments become more accountable and organized, and can aid in decentralizing benefits by granting access to remote rural areas. • The Internet can aid agricultural worker and manufactures attain efficient access to markets. • It brings improved information and stimulates literacy.

8. The Normalization Theory • International Organizations have developed IT as an important part if their development strategy, thus co-opting the normalization theory and a cyber-optimist approach to the challenge of bridging the digital divide. • The normalization theory states that the Internet will eventually democratize the rest of the world as the price of access decreases, and will become a more universally popular medium, such as radio and television. • Originally the Internet was limited to the scientific, academic, and military elite, but later spilled over to to advanced industrialized societies. Proponents of the normalization theory believe that this spill over will continue and manifest itself in the form of cheaper and more affordable Internet access for all citizens of the world.

9. World Governance Organizations Take Notice • The G-8 recently initiated a campaign to help developing societies build the necessary technological infrastructures to gap their digital divide issues during the 2000 Kyushu-Okinawa • The Digital Divide Task Force was created in March 200 at the request of the United Nations (UN) Economic and Social Counsel and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. • The Task Force set the precedent for other institutions to follow in efforts to bridge the international digital divide. Furthermore, the Digital Divide Task Force’s charter which addresses both the opportunities made available by net technologies and the necessity to make these technologies available in all countries. • In addition, the World Bank and European Union have pledged their support for initiatives aimed at bridging the international digital divide.

10. United States Efforts to Bridge the Digital Divide • Thus far, efforts in the US to bridge its digital divide have been most effective on a local level. • The demographics most adversely affected by the digital divide are inner-city minorities and rural residents who are largely ignored by Internet Service Providers. This is evidenced by the fact that only 23% of US Black and Latino households are connected to the internet -- children and adults are equally affected. • Often inner-city and poor rural school districts will purchase computers to appear current, but a lack of staff training, facilities, and operating budgets to get full use of the computers leave the technological states of the schools in a far less than optimal state. • Throwing money at a problem general does little else than create and expensive problem, but innovative new programs are helping bridge the US digital divide with means other than just increases in purchases.

11. Divide-Bridging Methodologies • In, Baltimore, MD, a partnership between the city and Harvard University’s W.E.B. Dubois Institute created the Martin Luther King Jr. After-School Academy at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church Outreach Center, which plans after-school school activities and serves about 60 students in primary and secondary schools. • The goals of the program are to educate Blacks about their heritage and give them access to a computer along with training. This program does not try to attack the whole problem all at once, but by achieving results with a few children at a time, it is making a difference. • Another successful venture to bridge the digital divide is Los Angeles’s “Valley Family Technology Project,” which provides training for students and 300 parents in English, usually not there native language, and in computer and Internet usage.

12. (continued) • Faith Tech is another local outreach program designed to assist elderly and working-class adults who do not have the income to buy a computer or the savvy to understand how to operate them. In addition, the program is located in a church, and as a result already has a facility and volunteers. • The program teaches people skills such as word processing and data entry, which are currently required for many entry-level workplace positions. • American Eagle and Carnegie Melon University are the primary donors of computers • Faith Tech has been so successful that volunteer organization across Pittsburgh have used the program as a model for their own cyber-centers.

13. Rural Areas & The Digital Divide • Low-income urban communities and the resulting digital divide are often the primary focus of many scholars and politicians, but the rural inequity is often ignored. • Kutztown, a small town in Pennsylvania decided to build its own bypass to the information superhighway by building its own high-speed network for Internet users. • Tired of being ignored by such providers as Verizon and AT&T, Kutztown installed a fiber optic Ethernet network for $4.6 million dollars. It will charge only $33 dollars a month and provide speeds 10 times faster then cable modems. • Over 100 towns similar to Kutztown have built such networks, causing 11 states to outlaw municipalities from offering their own service. • local efforts in the United States show us how the digital divide bridge can be built, one computer at a time.

14. The Internet Kiosk Model • Many developing countries lack the infrastructure and resources to access communication services. • The Internet kiosk model arises from the limitations that other models have had in developing countries regarding online accessibility, as booths have proved in recent years that a lack of infrastructure and resources can be solved at a collectively. • The multifunctional services that Internet kiosks and cyber cafes provide include online connection and other related services such as printing, scanning, long distance international phone calls, online activities, training, and the latter accompanied by a refreshment service. • Many Latin American countries are experiencing from the popularity and exponential expansion of these services, which ultimately help bridge the digital divide gap.

15. Popularity & Growth of Internet Kiosks • The proliferation of Internet kiosks known as cabinas publicas has become a social phenomenon in the past couple of years, as they became a collective solution to the immoderate connection charges set by the Spanish telecommunications firm Telefonica. • Internet access in this region was confined to a small sector of the population, those who owned a computer and were able to afford the high connection rate. Therefore, cabinas publicas became a popular solution to provide access to the low-income population through low costs. • In Peru, the cabinas publicas attract a large segment of the population because the connection fee is fixed (usually 2 soles equivalent to 70 cents of a dollar per hour) and cheaper than the rates paid in private settings.

16. (continued) • Small-scale informal kiosks have created access opportunity for the low-income sectors of the population “satiating the popular demand for communication and connectivity”(Proenza). • “Of the total number of cabinas publicas, half are informal” (Conectarse al Internet) . • The rise of the informal sector, pirated software and the proliferation of the cabinas publicas have lowered the barriers of access to the digital technology realm to which developing countries have been exposed. • In Latin America, as well as in other regions, government and non-governmental organizations have launched projects to establish information kiosks in public areas such as bus stops, community centers, markets, tourist spots, airports and railways. • The African Communications Group implemented the kiosk model in post offices to enable small entrepreneurs, farmers and artisans to access the Internet and have a share in the global economy through e-commerce.

17. (continued) • Brazil and India’s government have launched a common project to help bridge the digital divide by making computers more affordable. • In Brazil, computers are available at the cheap price of $300, and in India, “Simputers,” which are mobile computers that run on AAA batteries and include a service that translates web pages into the native language, are sold for only $200. • Internet kiosks in India have incorporated a wireless technology system that will expand the telecommunication revolution into the rural communities. • The proliferation of these wireless Internet cabins is due to the installation’s inexpensive cost of 40,000 rupees (approximately $800) rather than the cost of 30,000 rupees for a single telephone line (Web Kiosks 1). • The information kiosk model has created a platform for the government to improve the delivery of social services and to enable civil society to become actively involved in the Information Age revolution.

18. Evolution of Communal Internet Access • Developed and emerging economies have also applied the Internet booth model. For instance, countries like Finland, Germany, Sweden and England have addressed the rural-urban digital divide by establishing Internet booths in marginalized sectors of the country. • Asian countries are also following these initiatives with the purpose of allowing the public to have more access to information. • Although two years ago, due to its inability to cope with the development of the economy and control the sociopolitical changes taking place at the time, the Chinese government ordered the shutdown of half of the city’s Internet kiosks and implemented regulations for Internet access (Networking and Outreach Clusters). • The Internet kiosk model has become a viable solution to address the disparities and inequalities in accessibility to the World Wide Web.

19. Conclusion • In knowledge and information based societies, those having access to technological resources will achieve, while others will be left behind. It is not coincidental that young individuals attaining employment status and of higher socioeconomic standing have the highest levels of Internet use and computer accessibility • Left to the devices of a laissez faire marketplace philosophy, the international digital divide will remain a thorn in the side of societal endeavors and innovations, as not all will benefit -- especially the poor and rural. Unlike the raw material, labor, and capital intensive successful economies of the past, in an IT age, knowledge acquisition and utilization allows anyone from anywhere to emerge as a valuable global and societal contributor. • Education and technology training are the keys to unlocking optimal technology exploitation potential, and along with collaborative efforts of communities, additional private sectors, educational systems, and governments can the great digital divide be tamed and eventually bridged.

20. THIS HAS BEEN A PRESENTATION OF THE DIGITAL DIVIDE GROUP 1. GROUP MEMBERS: Jeff Coletta Roman Strakovsky Brian Wallis Wendy Winder