Next Steps

As discussed earlier, collaboration of various stakeholders and organizations can help ease the digital divide. Through collaborations, media training centers can be established in the rural and urban areas of the country (this strategy can be used in both developed and developing countries). They can help overcome the problems of centers that are created independently on smaller scales. One good example of this is in South Africa. In South Africa, the ICT project centers are established in partnership with the Department of Education and the MIET. They have centralized systems for each district with satellite divisions for adjoining villages.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a905796506~db=all~jumptype=rss

The benefits of this kind of a system are:
1) Collaborating with local educational organizations can help understand the context of the place better. They help understand the types of resources available, the types of resources that are missing, the gender divide in usage of technology, can advocate for bridging the gender divide, they can form regulations to include every child for education, and they have a certain authority that people seem to respect.
2) Along with bridging the divide, these collaborations can also help in the development of the society. For example, they can offer classes for job training. They can also ask the educational system to make women education mandatory and can therefore enhance women emancipation.
3) By using the educational system, the centers can reach its target audience better. The educational system can integrate the ICT projects within the coursework in order to impart technical knowledge as a part of the main coursework.
4) This kind of collaboration helps reach a broader number of villages (rural area). Every district has a central system and also satellite systems in adjoining rural areas. This helps cover a larger number of villages.
5) The collaborating members can divide the work based on their expertise. They can also prioritize their objectives and assign appropriate members with proper skill sets to these objectives. This will make the process much faster and focused.

However, even with the above stated benefits, there are still a few dilemmas attached to the functioning of such systems.

Many villages and towns in developing countries lack even the basic infrastructure like electricity. So, how can these programs survive in such situations?
One way to achieve this is by collaborating with a big organization that can actually fund the basic infrastructure for the district. This may be impractical but there are companies that have done this in the past. One good example of this is Tata in Jamshedpur, India.

http://www.tata.com/careers/index.aspx?sectid=10thFt4D0OU=

The entire town of Tata has an amazing infrastructure that is funded by the company. The electricity is generated at their power plant and the whole town is provided with their service. However, this is not the most pragmatic way. Mobile satellite ITC centers are probably the best way (discussed in an earlier post) .

http://www.worlib.org/vol17no1/singh_v17n1.shtml

However, much research is still required on this. More data is required in order to understand the situation better. ICTs should seek to understand the local context they are operating in. Also, they should look towards the overall development of the area, rather than concentrating on a handful of people. This is possible through strong strategic collaborations and one good example of this is the collaboration of MIET with the Department of Education in South Africa.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ763160&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ763160

Education and the Digital Divide

When I first came to America in 2004 (for my undergraduate education), my English Literature professor asked me whether I was comfortable typing my papers on a computer. I had definitely used my laptop for surfing the web or communicating with others (chatting, calling, emailing, filling my online application for American colleges, and even for downloading music, which at that time, took over days to download). However, I had never used it to type papers for high school (a private school in New Delhi) assignments. Our projects were all handwritten and the supporting information were Xeroxed (photocopied) from the sources. The maximum IT we used at school was for a course called IP (Informative Practice). The course circled around q- basic, an ancient computer language that we dreaded to attend. However, we never used the Internet and WWW to conduct in-depth research for any paper/project. For our research work, most books were available at the library. We also possessed the means to buy new books when required. However, when I was introduced to the online database, I understood the versatility and the importance of all the information we had lacked.
Also, even though we were bestowed with resources to buy or borrow books from the shops or libraries, most people in developing countries do not have that luxury.


Many people in rural and urban areas of India are still illiterate. They use Thumbprints instead of their signature on legal documents. However, even though they do not know how to read or use the Internet or any new technology, they are still skilled and well informed about their work. So, a basic question that comes to my mind is: Are children who are using IPads for their school work (for example; http://www.macworld.com/article/153672/2010/08/ipaded.html : many schools in the United States are incorporating IPads in school in the anticipation that IPads are the next generation for digital books and that they help in attracting more students) more accomplished than children of the rural areas of developing countries (who are only skilled to manage their own work)?


To look for this answer, I studied literature from various sources and databases. One such research is highlighted below.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/1891346370-86979629/content~db=all~content=a911177673~frm=titlelink

A study was conducted on computer and cancer literacy amongst the Latino and the African American parents. Around 120 parents participated in this study. They were made to take a 6 hours course and the control group had 70 non-participants. The results were promising. They reported that parents who were enrolled in the program had better computer literacy and increased cancer knowledge.
The above stated result somewhere hints that computer based literacy, Internet based Research, or usage of any other technology for information can actually make a huge difference in the way people perceive the world. However, this does not mean that a rural child is any less or more intelligent. It just iterates that the Internet is another easy tool to increase one’s knowledge. If this technology becomes more accessible (like amongst most groups of developed countries), people in small towns and villages could be made to gain more information about their specific trade. They will not have to count on other human or outside sources to provide them with specific information. Also, their knowledge will not stay stagnant. They can grow from it and help others grow too. While, they can acquire information about their specific concerns, they can also help others by making databases with relevant information. However, this may be too ideal a dream for a country where a large number of people are sill below the poverty line and are illiterate. However, this is also the country where big financial institutions like IIM are providing students with online MBA classes.
http://www.indiaedu.com/online-education/online-mba.html


Such a great divide exists within a country that has a handful of people who are extremely rich and then a large number who are struggling to cross the poverty line. The only solution to this could be the private-public collaboration that was discussed in an earlier post.