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Thursday, 14 October, 1999, 12:34 GMT 13:34 UK **Bridging the digital divide** The Internet has ushered in the greatest period of wealth creation in history. It's rocked the way we deliver and receive information and the way we do business. And so, for many, it is easy to accept euphoric claims - like those of Vice President Al Gore - that the Internet is also bringing about a brave new world replete with an "electronic agora" and "online democracy". It's not. More than 80% of people in the world have never even heard a dial tone, let alone surfed the Web. And the gap between the information haves and have-nots is widening. In a speech this week at Telecom 99 in Geneva, Switzerland, UN Secretary General Kofi Anan warned of the danger of excluding the world's poor from the information revolution. "People lack many things: jobs, shelter, food, health care and drinkable water. Today, being cut off from basic telecommunications services is a hardship almost as acute as these other deprivations, and may indeed reduce the chances of finding remedies to them," he said. Wireless Technology to Bind an African Village By MATT VILLANO Published: November 13, 2006 NEAR Fort Portal, [|Uganda], where modern resources are scarce and power outages occur daily, four remote villages are harnessing solar-powered computers, wireless networks and telephones to help farmers compete in the regional economy. The computer-and-telephone system, designed by the San Francisco nonprofit group Inveneo, also enables villagers to surf the Web, build databases, use e-mail and make phone calls over the Internet — a big assist considering that the nearest land-line phone is two miles away.  The impact has been immediate. Computer literacy among the 3,200 residents of the region is on the rise. The municipal governments have used the technology to organize records and cut back on paper files. The local economy is benefiting as well, said Jane Nabwire, information technology officer of the project. In an e-mail message from Fort Portal, Ms. Nabwire said that farmers used the technology to call friends in larger cities and obtain market prices for produce before deciding whether the trek to town is worth it. “The technology has brought services to people where they can access developmental information at any time,” she wrote. “In every possible way, it has made life for us easier.” To users in the United States who can pay bills online and answer e-mail on their cellphones, these technologies may not seem so vital. But in countries like Uganda, the gift of information and communications technology can change an entire area’s perspective on the world. Many call this practice technophilanthropy, though the equipment involved is not always donated. Inveneo, although a nonprofit group, sells its technology to nongovernmental organizations, which supply it to areas in need. Another nonprofit, the AED-Satellife Center for Health Information and Technology in Watertown, Mass., gets financing through grants and gives the technology away. Jody Mahoney, senior director of international development at TechSoup, a nonprofit technology assistance agency in San Francisco, said that however the two groups arranged for payment for these projects, they shared a belief that technology can help developing nations help themselves. “No one solution is going to work,” she said. “The best way to get technology into these nations is to create an ecosystem of partners that give people the tools they need to get things done.” Inveneo’s efforts revolve around these partners. In 2003, two of its co-founders, Mark Summer and Robert Marsh, developed a wireless communications system for villagers in Laos while volunteering for a nongovernmental organization there. Last year, they took the technology to Uganda, teaming with ActionAid. Together, the two groups chose a town called Bukuuku for an economic development pilot program because the villagers were farmers who earned less than a dollar a day. Since then, the effort has expanded greatly, including the setup in the Fort Portal area. Mr. Summer, who now serves as Inveneo’s chief executive, said that by the end of the year it would be supporting 18 projects in Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana, Mali and Guinea-Bissau. At the AED-Satellife Center, the focus is on medicine with two goals: to disseminate information to health workers all over the world and to give nations like Rwanda and Uganda the ability to use technology to revolutionize the way they keep medical records. Crucial to this effort is a network of hand-held computers. With the help of a special wireless access point, the hand-held devices transmit information about patients from field offices to regional ministries of health. The network, much like computers from Inveneo, runs on solar and battery power, and is meant to replace the paper-based record-keeping that characterized so many of these countries for years. Andrew Sideman, AED-Satellife’s director of development, said this information was important because it helped doctors decide how resources were allocated. “The gathering of health information doesn’t sound very exciting, but it’s the basis for how decisions are made,” he said, adding that the Satellife network also enables Web surfing and e-mail communication for villagers and doctors alike. “In meeting this need, we hope to improve the overall health of this part of the world.” So far in Uganda, Satellife has accomplished that goal. For years, when pregnant women gave birth, doctors had 72 hours afterward to dispatch a messenger to pick up a refrigerated dose of Nevirapine, a drug that kills [|H.I.V.] in newborns and is routinely administered. Today, under the new system, the doctors send out e-mail queries as the mother is about to give birth, so the drug is there when the baby is born. Somebody has to pay for this kind of project, and in Satellife’s case, the network is underwritten by grants, including $1 million from the International Development Aid Research Center, the Canadian government organization akin to the United States [|Agency for International Development]. Inveneo, on the other hand, finances its projects by selling the technology to nongovernmental organizations and other parties for $2,000 each. Inveneo then reinvests these funds into the company by buying new technology and making more computers to distribute in other developing nations. Skeptics question how important these efforts are to nations where people are dying of starvation. But Ms. Mahoney, the director of TechSoup, disagrees. “Technology can be a tool to save people’s lives,” she said. “Anything that enables these people to share information is a step in the right direction.” Many experts have said that trade is the solution for Africa to develop. I can’t agree more. The greatest challenge facing Uganda and Africa, as a whole is to make its people participants in the global marketplace and thereby unlock it’s true potential. Furthermore, there can be no doubt that the ability to transfer and process information quickly, conveniently and cost effectively has become the prerequisite for economic growth and global competitiveness. That trade is now exclusively dependent on the adoption and integration of modern forms of communication and information. With developed nations dominating in ICT and Uganda lagging behind, this leaves the country at a major disadvantage. According to a recent report by Makerere University, Uganda - home to 26 million people - has just 200,000 computers, about 1.2 million have access to phones. And these numbers are concentrated in the capital city Kampala. For the rural people who live on less than $1 a day, the information revolution has completely bypassed them. No country can avoid embracing the information age if it is to be competitive within the international arena. I have heard people argue that ICT is expensive, a luxury in Africa. Problems like food security, safe water and sanitation, healthcare and education are still looming. Is it realistic to talk about ICT in these circumstances? Kathy Foley of Nua Internet Surveys summed up the dilemma rather well: "The problems of the developing world are not one-dimensional... For these countries, it should not be a choice between food, shelter and education on one hand and access to communications technologies on the other. If they get the technology alone, they will go hungry. If they only succeed in feeding and sheltering their citizens without developing an adequate communications infrastructure, then these countries will always be "Third World" as they will never be able to compete fairly with industrialised countries. A holistic approach is needed". Holistic obviously has the right ring to it, but how will it work in practice? Here are a few suggestions Information kiosks with posters, videos, and literature in local languages can be set up where people could access information that is relevant to them. Public phones could be set up in trading centres - farmers could use phones to get information from a local entrepreneur about prices in several local agricultural markets, rather than relying, as they do, on the word of the middleman. Rural hospitals can be connected to the Internet and the few doctors there could email x-rays and laboratory results to their counterparts in bigger hospitals for consultation. In all this cases it is important for the private sector to extend their services to this areas, and government has to give them incentives to do so. Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Community Based Organisations (CBO) and civil society's role would also have to help increase awareness of ICT in rural Africa. Now for the hard questions... · How exactly will digital infrastructure help African economies grow? What will it do that water pumps or good roads can't? · Where will the skills (technical and managerial) come from to operate an upgraded digital infrastructure? · How will African economies grow to enable them to service the digital infrastructure? Why's it going to be different this time? Why won't say a billion dollars sunk into ICT turn into the digital equivalent of potholed roads? · How will African governments and external funders avoid a large "scoop" of the funds "wandering off" into the hands of corrupt officials or politicians? We want it to work but remain haunted by these questions. If you can provide answers to them, please kindly go to [|http://www.pushaz.com] and leave your responses. A prize (yet to be devised) will be given for the best contribution. Article Source: [|http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Allan_Rwakatungu] ||
 * Allan Rwakatungu is an Information Technology Consultant in Uganda. He has a B.Sc in Economics & Statistics as well as being a Microsoft Certified Professional. His vision is to ensure to bring more Ugandans into the information age.

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