Information communication technologies affect people around the world. It is a great benefit if it is used in societies. There is a digital divide around the concept of information communication technologies. Countries with information communication technologies are a lot better off than countries without access to information communication technologies. This technology improves various things in developing countries. A cause of the digital divide is the cost of technology. Developing countries do not have the money to buy technology and provide it to people in society. Another cause of the digital divide is the lack of knowledge of how to use the technology. If a society has the technology, but does not know how to operate it the technology is not beneficial.
An organization trying to fix the digital divide is called Close the Gap. Close the Gap is an international non-profit organization. They want to help the digital divide problem by providing computers to developing countries. The computers are donated by European companies to support education, medicine, and social aspects. Then, other organizations set up the computers. They are cleaned and hardware is installed. After the computers are set up, they are sent to different countries around the world. Close the Gap has provided around 250,000 computers to developing countries. Also, Close the Gap helps with around 2,500 projects. These projects help people and their communities improve through poverty and hunger, education, gender equality, and health. Information and communication technology helps with poverty and hunger by allowing people to have access to technology to work which can increase their income. With more income, people can buy food to nourish themselves. Education is helped by information communication technologies because more information is available. More information causes better quality education. Information and communication technology helps women improve their skills and professional development increasing gender equality. Also, health is benefited by information and communication technology. Administration is improved, health services is improved because data can be stored, and more information about health is available for people to read.
In addition to providing computers to developing countries, Close the Gap provides a “Digi-Truck.” The “Digi-Truck” is a mobile IT lab. It can provide areas in Africa access to electricity and technology. The truck can run completely on solar power, and contains twenty laptops, one LED screen, a printer, two routers, two SSD disks, LED lights, and room for eighteen people to work. Close the Gap is working hard to find ways to fix the digital divide problem around the world. They believe that providing information and communication technology allows developing countries to catch up with developed countries.
What do you think of the “Digi-Truck?” Do you think Close the Gap can really make a difference with information and communication technology in developing countries?
Source:
http://close-the-gap.org/
Eliminating the “Digital Divide” is one of the most important problems facing the world of Information Sciences and Technology. Everyone in the world deserves the right to equal education—a right hindered by this gap between the developing and developed world. Therefore, to me, Close the Gap sounds like an incredible organization tackling perhaps the biggest challenge facing the IST community today. Upon reading your article, Renee, I took an interest in the so-called “Digi”-Truck and therefore decided to research the topic further.
According to Close the Gap’s website, “Digi”-Trucks have a wide range of applications. A single truck can be used “as a mobile health centre, [to] hold community trainings, [and] double as a cyber café and an IT classroom.” Though some of these uses obviously have more merit than others, the overall diversity of the vehicle’s application would absolutely prove beneficial to a community in the developing world.
However, since the primary focus for eliminating the “Digital Divide” is the equal education and technological access of all people, I believe that the most useful application of the “Digi”-Truck is the IT classroom. According to Close the Gap’s website, “Digi”-Trucks are aimed at helping primarily rural communities in Africa for, in an amazing statistic, though “75% of Africans are living in rural communities” “only 46% of students from rural schools qualify for secondary school due to a low quality primary school.” Thus these trucks could have an amazing impact on African education, giving students without the proper resources an external learning outlet with which they could develop new skills and experience.
Overall, I believe that Close the Gap’s “Digi”-Trucks are an amazing invention that can slowly help eliminate the “Digital Divide.” Hopefully, as the technology and popularity of “Digi”-Trucks progresses, we will begin to see more of such vehicles in Africa as well as other developing countries around the globe.
Sources:
http://close-the-gap.org/what-we-do/the-digi-truck/
http://close-the-gap.org/the-cocoon-mobile-it-unit-makes-its-first-stop-at-vub-campus/
Renee,
I think the Close the Gap program is an excellent innovative initiative taken by people to help poor citizens across the globe. Close the gap has gotten very positive feedback (http://close-the-gap.org/) from its vendors and its participating donors. Movements like this are encouraged to be supported by the government too, even as a nonprofit.
I was reading another very interested article which actually discussed different viewpoints pertaining to donating technology to less fortunate countries. This article found on Boston University’s website offers a more realistic view of what might happen if technology is donated. They claim that some computers are not utilized properly by the people that receive them. For example, the article states that we can donate computers but people will not know how to use them. Without proper training, they are useless. Also if donated technology was to be put into schoolhouses, then the kids should be able to play with them to learn software programs, right? Wrong. Apparently many teachers lock these devices up because they are afraid their schoolkids will break or destroy them. Kind of interesting feedback in my opinion.
On the flip side, donating technology is always good in some ways for closing the digital divide. For example, some kids in Russia have been lucky enough to learn how to play video games on computers. This allows them to increase their learning capabilities and to enjoy the technology that was donated. Also, reports of using programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel are being learned by less fortunate kids in school which is insightful.
http://www.bu.edu/sjmag/scimag2005/opinion/donatingcomputers.htm
All in all the Digital Divide is a very touchy subject for most people. The kindness of the donators of technology is matched with the incompetence of the people receiving it. Hopefully we will see a change and everybody that is lucky enough to receive technology will utilize it to the full potential. I think overall it is a very wonderful movement and we will continue to see an increased rate of donations to less fortunate countries over the next decade and beyond.