My Blog

Digital Divide

I received by mail the other day….something interesting.......

“ If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following: There Would Be

  • 57 Asians
  • 21 Europeans
  • 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
  • 8 Africans
  • 52 would be female
  • 48 would be male
  • 70 would be nonwhite
  • 30 would be white
  • 70 would be non-Christian
  • 30 would be Christian
  • 80 would live in substandard housing
  • 70 would be unable to read
  • 50 would suffer from malnutrition
  • 1 would be near death
  • 1 would be near birth
  • 1(yes, only 1) would have a college education
  • 1 would own a computer

Think Of It

I assume the 1 computer would probably be from the US or UK….because statistics state… that more than 96 percent of computers connected to the Internet are in the wealthiest nations, home to 15 percent of the world's population. Nearly 60 percent of the US population has some access to the Internet, a distribution that is highly correlated to with household income.

But the scenario in Developing countries is not filled with sunshine… even in enterprises 1:20 is the people computer ratio. In India less than 0.5% fall into the ‘Technology Knows & haves’ category. For a country with one Million Population this situation is deplorable. The dire truth is, a bigger population of the upper income level & educated also fall into the Technology - Know nots and Technology-have nots group.

This situation needs to “change”.

OK… now coming to “DIGITAL DIVIDE” – what do we mean by it? There are many explanations for the same, there is also a group debating if the digital divide really exists.

Bridges.org has given the formal definition of Digital Divide, which puts it as – “the DIGITAL DIVIDE means – that between countries and between two groups of people within the country, there is a wide division between those who have real access to information and communication technology and are using it effectively and those who don’t.

Since information and communications technologies (ICT) are increasingly becoming a foundation of our societies and economies, the digital divide means that the "information have-nots" are denied the option to participate in new ICT environment”. (affecting both the society and the economy).

Bridging the digital divide is the need of the hour. It is the biggest challenge in the changing business environmen

Bridging the “digital divide" does not aim at internet for everyone nor making every one a tech screwy. Bridging the digital divide should seek to removing the technology ambiguity, reduce knowledge gaps, propagate benefits and of course provide means of access to information and communication technology in a way to improve and make efficient the business environment and promote individual, social and economic development.

What are the reasons for the Digital Divide ? What needs to go into bridging the gap.....