The problem can be shortly stated.
There is plenty of literature on the economical aspects of Digital Divide,
covering both international and domestic aspects, with a very large
documentation of statistics, measurements, recommendations and case studies.
What I'm looking for is something about the impact of ICT on local,
especially rural, cultures. How a calm day by day life in rural area can
interact with the speed of communcation through the ICT?
I think this is one of the main issues people (not only from the developed
world) involved in on the ground projects have to deal with. Yes, the
question comes form my, and others, personal experience, therefore it's very
limited to a single place, but any policy, and any projects, ends to people,
i.e. local people who most likely have never seen a computer before.
The main point is people, not technology.
So usual practical questions arise:
- how can we use the pc in the day by day life?
- ok, the culture is important for the future but what can we do now to get
some money, a job, now
- such a speed on communication is not our first priority, the usual
channels are quite enough, why should we spend so much in order to be
connected with the entire world?
- ok, I want to learn something about computers but just to have some more
chances to find a job
- how the computer knowledge can help the local economy to grow?
- what do you mean with a better level of life, how could I use a computer
for something I don't know yet?
- etc.
To trivial? Maybe, for us chatting here! But surely not for my parents too
(Italy, even if deep south).
Waiting for the next project somewhere, I'd like to know some more from
somebody else about ICT and people running at a different speed.
I strongly believe in the (final) people directly involved, each of them is
different so that different issues would arise, but trying to capture the
basic local attitude is the first priority for any on the ground project.
Thanks
Raffaele Moles
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Hibbs
Sent: Mon 24 Jan 2005 10:19 PM
To: The Digital Divide Network discussiongroup
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [DDN] ICT for Development research from Berkeley
At 12:41 PM +0100 1/24/05, Raffaele Moles wrote:
If you are interested in such a topic I will try to send you more
details about whatever you'll ask.
Please do. In fact the work Raffaele talks about is so salutary, I
thought it worthy of a re-read.
Raffaele Moles wrote:
I'm working on Digital Divide related topics.
I have spent one year (Oct 2003-Oct 2004) in Sri Lanka, as volunteer
coordinator in the startup of an IT Training Center (ITTC). The ITTC is
managed by a local ngo and we started it from scratch, involving more
than 500 students. We built the ITTC starting with 8 desktops and after
seven months we had 50 laptops (Pentium 1), a Local Area Network (LAN)
with one server (Pentium 2), an Internet connection shared on the LAN,
a Database and an internal web site with administration, teaching and
learning tools (such as online resources, online tests, etc.).
One of the main goals was the training of local people as future teachers,
also able to run the school after the volunteers. I was the only foreigner
until May and after new volunteers came from Japan, in May 2005, and from
Spain, in August 2005, and again from Japain in Oct 2005.
So far, the ITTC has had a very strong impact on the local community,
allowing many students (almost none of them had touched a computer before)
to have both basic literacy and a deeper touch in IT.
Of course we also had to face some questions on the relationships with
local
attitude, surely not so frenetic as in western countries (or developed
world); the real impact was on people, not about physical resources
availability.
To be short, the question is how to deal with fast technology and
slow attitude. If you are interested in such a topic I will try to
send you more details about whatever you'll ask.
Thanks
Raffaele Moles
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