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The Great Digital Divide

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Global digital divide. A digital divide is an economic inequality between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICT).[1][2] The divide within countries, such as the digital divide in the United States) may refer to inequalities between individuals, households, businesses, and geographic areas at different socioeconomic and other demographic levels, while the divide between countries is referred to as the global digital divide,[3][4][5] which designates nations as the units of analysis and examines the gap between developing and developed countries on an international scale.[2] Definition and usage[edit] The term Digital divide is used to describe a gap between those who have ready access to information and communication technology and the skills to make use of those technology and those who do not have the access or skills to use those same technologies within a geographic area, society or community.

Means of connectivity[edit] What is the "digital divide?" Canada can't afford a digital divide. It is time to update Herbert Hoover’s 1928 promise of prosperity: We need a connected computer for every home. There are a number of colleagues joining me in a call for universal access to computers starting with ensuring that all households with school aged children have access to a computer with internet connectivity. Too often, government programs that target broadband have looked at the supply side of the equation, creating subsidies to carriers in rural markets to help offset the cost of building broadband in low density markets. These programs look at leveling the price of broadband services, without a view to its relative affordability. As a result, there hasn’t been sufficient focus on driving demand by increasing adoption of computers and improving digital skills.

Thanks to government initiatives and private sector leadership, Canadians now have access to a broadband service in even the most remote parts of the country. As you might expect, this is heavily skewed by income level. OWD: How Can You Overcome Digital Divide? Digital divide. A digital divide is an economic inequality between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICT).[1][2] The divide within countries, such as the digital divide in the United States) may refer to inequalities between individuals, households, businesses, and geographic areas at different socioeconomic and other demographic levels, while the divide between countries is referred to as the global digital divide,[3][4][5] which designates nations as the units of analysis and examines the gap between developing and developed countries on an international scale.[2] Definition and usage[edit] The term Digital divide is used to describe a gap between those who have ready access to information and communication technology and the skills to make use of those technology and those who do not have the access or skills to use those same technologies within a geographic area, society or community.

Means of connectivity[edit] Digital Opportunity Index. The ICT Development Index (IDI) is an index published by the United Nations International Telecommunication Union based on internationally agreed information and communication technologies (ICT) indicators. This makes it a valuable tool for benchmarking the most important indicators for measuring the information society. The IDI is a standard tool that governments, operators, development agencies, researchers and others can use to measure the digital divide and compare ICT performance within and across countries. The ICT Development Index is based on 11 ICT indicators, grouped in three clusters: access, use and skills.

Top 30 countries[edit] The following is a list of top 30 countries as ranked by the ICT Development Index in 2011. References[edit] Measuring the Information Society 2012. OLPCFoundation's Channel. Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education. Hole-in-the-Wall. Sugata Mitra. OLPC Mission, Part 2: The XO Laptop, design for learning. One Laptop per Child. One Laptop Per Child. Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, two years on.

The founding story — 100CAMERAS. 100cameras was co-founded by four women in 2008 on the premise that a child sees the world differently than adults.They believed a child could take a camera into their own community and capture stories of the world around them in ways an older or outside photographer could not. And they were confident these stories could change lives, both within the community and around the world. In late 2008, the concept was first tested when one of the friends went to South Sudan and gave cameras to kids at an orphanage. The photos that returned were remarkable. In a hard place that most would call hopeless, these images told a different story: one full of life, hope, and joy. Our four friends wanted to share the stories of these kids with their friends. They hosted the first event to exhibit images from South Sudan in a matchbox apartment in New York City.

Over 80 people attended that evening and interest in the project grew drastically. 100CAMERAS. Main Page — Kiwix. Services | Digital Divide Data. DDD powers the data services needs of businesses and institutions world-wide. We deliver digital services that ensure the integrity of your data, help you analyze it, unlock and extend the value of your databases, documents, publications and archives--and make them accessible and searchable online, even on mobile devices. Focus on your core business while DDD manages and maintains the data that fuels it. With DDD’s unique Impact Sourcing model, our staff is incredibly dedicated to meeting your requirements. Based on employee retention far exceeding industry norms, the same teams stay with your work for the long haul. DDD’s Impact Sourcing model empowers young women and men in emerging economies to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

For more than a decade, DDD has served clients with an unswerving commitment to quality, value and innovation. Please contact our worldwide sales team for more information. Services Overview. Outernet | Information for the World from Outer Space. Digital Divide Data. Zero Dollar Laptop. A programme of public debates, exhibitions and workshops about art, technology and environment "Only when people are able to use computers to produce their own data does information communication technology become genuinely empowering. " - James Wallbank Furtherfield is committed to delivering on promise of the Zero Dollar Laptop manifesto with a series of workshop programmes with different community groupw. The Zero Dollar Laptop, is a recycled laptop running Free Open Source Software (FOSS) that is fast and effective- now and long into the future; repurposing otherwise redundant technology, gathering dust in bedrooms and offices across the country. Pilot workshops with the clients of St.

Mungo’s Charity for Homeless People ran for twelve weeks in 2010, where participants learned about using their laptop from core of installing their own operating system to customising their own machines, writing articles and creating images to share and publish via social media. Rugged, Low Cost Laptops for Kids, Education and Classrooms Worldwide — Intel-powered classmate PC!

:: Thinstation - a light, full-featured Linux thin client OS :: Thinstation is a basic and small, yet very powerful, Open Source thin client operating system supporting all major connectivity protocols: Citrix ICA, NoMachine NX, 2X ThinClient, Microsoft Windows terminal services (RDP, via RDesktop), VMWare Horizon View, Cendio ThinLinc, Tarantella, X, telnet, tn5250, VMS terminal and SSH (No special configuration of the application servers is needed to use Thinstation). Thinstation is mainly intended for schoolroom, office, company or department use, but can be used at home (eg. for a silent PC in the bedroom that 'runs' XP on your workstation in the back room). While Thinstation is based on Linux, users may actually never see Linux at all. If you decide to connect directly to a Microsoft Windows, Citrix or Unix server, the user will feel that they are running directly on the server. But, you can also have a local Desktop interface (with a local Browser & other tools).

Thinstation runs on ordinary PC hardware (32/64 bit i686 class). Zero Dollar Laptop Workshops. New Videos from Za-nič kišta CAAP Maribor has just produced new videos about the Slovenian Zero Dollar Laptop workshops for migrant workers and refugees that took place in Maribor in 2012. Available from: Za-nič kišta – trailer Participants of the Slovenian Zero Dollar Laptop project (Za-nič kišta) made this lovely short film as an introduction to the project! First cycle of ZDLT workshops in Slovenia completed ZA-NIČ KIŠTA, the Slovenian Zero Dollar Laptop project, has completed the first cycle of workshops for migrant workers and refugees. ‘Digital Rubbish’ by Jennifer Gabrys- mentions Zero Dollar Laptop Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics This is a study of the material life of information and its devices; of electronic waste in its physical and electronic incarnations; a cultural and material mapping of the spaces where electronics in the form of both hardware and information accumulate, break down, or are stowed away.

Information and communication technologies for development. Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) refers to the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the fields of socioeconomic development, international development and human rights. The theory behind this is that more and better information and communication furthers the development of a society. Aside from its reliance on technology, ICT4D also requires an understanding of community development, poverty, agriculture, healthcare, and basic education. This makes ICT4D appropriate technology and if it is shared openly open source appropriate technology.[1] Richard Heeks suggests that the I in ICT4D is related with “library and information sciences”, the C is associated with “communication studies", the T is linked with “information systems", and the D for “development studies”.[2] It is aimed at bridging the digital divide and aid economic development by fostering equitable access to modern communications technologies.

History[edit] Bridging the Digital Divide, Part 1. Every time America’s economy takes a great leap forward, its rural heartland seems to get left behind. After electricity had begun to light up our cities, it took 60 years to reach the mountains of Appalachia and the hills of Texas. The Interstate Highway System of the 1950s bypassed countless small towns, turning many a Main Street into a retail ghost town.

Today, as the information superhighway becomes a backbone of the U.S. economy, Sharon Strover works to keep history from repeating itself. The College of Communication professor and director of the Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute has been researching the digital divide between rural and urban America — and taking part in a multibillion-dollar effort to bridge it. That digital divide is a moving target, acknowledges Strover. “Originally, it referred to those who had and didn’t have computers.

There were gaps based on income, location, age and sex. The gap between city and country might be getting wider. Bridging the Digital Divide, Part 2. On a recent visit to New York City, Craig Watkins went sightseeing down 125th St. in Harlem, a cradle of African-American culture and home to the legendary Apollo Theater. Today, the street is crowded with shops and vendors selling mobile phones. But Watkins found not a single shop selling a desktop or a laptop computer. To Watkins, a University of Texas associate professor who teaches in both the College of Liberal Arts’ African studies department and in the College of Communication, it was a stark illustration of a new digital divide: the gap between how minority teens and white teens use the Internet.

It’s a divide with economic fallout, hindering today’s black and Latino youth from creating the businesses of tomorrow. The dimensions of the divide have changed radically in a short time. Then came a piece of technology that, in some ways, closed the gap completely: the cell phone. At first glance, that’s good news, says Watkins. He points to the Chicago Public Library. Updates: Ethiopian Kids Hack Their OLPC Tablets in 5... Ethiopian Kids Hack Their OLPC Tablets in 5 Months, With No Help By Jamie Condliffe Give a thousand Ethiopian kids - who have never seen a printed word let alone played around with expensive consumer technology - a tablet, and what happens?

They hack it. Obviously. The amazing One Laptop Per Child scheme has been offering up Motorola Xoom tablets to kids in developing countries for a while. "We left the boxes in the village. That, that is just sensational. Image by OLPC. Bridging the digital divide: Low-income families enjoy cast-off PCs.

Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has been helping low-income families across the U.S. build and buy affordable homes to help improve their lives and futures. But today, despite having nice bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms and the rest, most of Habitat's houses are missing an essential 21st century tool that's likely present in the homes of most middle- and upper-income families -- a computer where family members can do schoolwork, learn, pay bills and expand their horizons.

For many low-income families, just having a nice place to live is the answer to a lot of prayers, but E.J. Thomas, CEO of the Habitat chapter in Columbus, Ohio, still didn't like the idea of a home without a computer. "Helping these families to be successful involves a lot of different things," Thomas says. Thomas wanted to find a way to get computers into the homes Habitat builds. And that's not all.

"We don't just call everybody and say, 'Come in and get your computer,'" Thomas says. Education - Stanford University: ME 310 Project. The SolutionThe design process for the laptop started with deciding which hardware to use. Then the team began designing a case to enclose the hardware, which would be simple and easy to disassemble. For this, it turned to 3D modeling software with Autodesk Inventor. "We created 3D shapes to represent the hardware we had to design around," explains Aaron Engel-Hall, a Stanford student and team member. "We used Inventor software often during the ideation phase to experiment with the design.

" For example, the team played around with various thicknesses for different portions of the case. Throughout the process, the team sent Inventor files directly to 3D printers to create stereolithography (SLA) prototypes for evaluation. The end result of the team’s efforts was the Bloom laptop, which can be disassembled in 10 steps, without tools, and easily separated into material types, such as plastics, metals, and circuitry. Beyond recyclability, Bloom delivers other benefits for consumers.

Sugar Labs—learning software for children. Group plans to beam free Internet across the globe from space.

Fossé Numérique

Home. Inequality kills – the future of online learning in distance education. Open Innovation and Access to Knowledge - Bertelsmann Future Challenges. Open Innovation and Access to Knowledge — Global Economic Symposium. Howard Rheingold on the new digital divide  - cccc's posterous. Internet for Everyone | Help define the future of the Internet in America. Ahumanright.org internet for everyone. Culture and the Digital Divide(s) Sustainable Commons Communication Strategy Debategraph.