Digital Divides, Digital Dividends Inspiring Projects and Forgotten Theories

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Digital Divides, Digital DividendsInspiring
Projects and Forgotten Theories?
11/8/2005 Philip N. Howard Assistant
Professor faculty.washington.edu/pnhoward
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Background
Convener, New Media and International
Development, Oxford University, 2003 PI, ICT4D
Database, University of Washington,
2003-present CoPI, NSF-funded Central Asia and
ICT, 2004-2005
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Technical Innovation in Development Theory
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Technical Innovation in Development Theory
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Technical Innovation in Development Theory
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Technical Innovation in Development Theory

• Modernization
• Dependency
• Underdevelopment
• Leap Frog

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ITU Advice on WiFi

• Use low frequency bands
• Seek modularity and scalability
• Build remote network management
• Simplify configuration and operation at user
  terminal
• Design flexible user interface design

• Plan long life cycles
• Offer multi-user terminals
• Comply with standards
• Ensure low power requirements

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India n-logue Information Kiosks

• Local entrepreneur sets up the Kiosk with
  assistance from n-logue.
• Each Kiosk is equipped with CorDect wireless
  connection, PC, Web Camera, printer and power
  back up, and a suite of local language
  applications (about 1,000USD, microcredit
  available).
• Multiple informational services computer
  training, typing, online courses for school,
  e-government services.
• Operating in 600 villages (20 districts) in
  different states.

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Laos Jhai Remote Hospitals
From hospital to water tower to treetop to
hospital. WiFi installation became an occasion
for organizational restructuring.
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Kosovo Infrastructure for the Public Sphere

• A relaxed regulatory atmosphere, with few
  licensing requirements.
• A large number of developed-world organizations
  trying to work on rebuilding civil society.
• Training for local Kosovars in technical
  infrastructure.
• Local organizational partners so residents
  build a sense of ownership.

IPKO then provided free service to local NGOs,
schools, and libraries, and charged the UN, NATO,
and external NGOs a nominal fee to connect
through their system.
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WiFi Applications

• Rural communities
• Resource monitoring
• helps connect friends and family with urban
  centers
• helps price signaling between urban and rural
  markets
• 2. Temporary refugee camps
• displaced people find friends and family
• helps relief services with logistics
• 3. Dense urban slums
• high urbanization rates outpaced the growth of
  communication infrastructure.

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Three Conclusions
First, private entrepreneurs still rely on public
utilities to ensure a distribution of fat pipes
and fiber points. Second, WiFi may be appealing
to us at an intellectual level, but private
entrepreneurs are essentially the field workers
(or more accurately salesmen) who sell the
services locally, maintain the connection to the
fiber point, and provide some training to
customers. Third, for WiFi to become a socially
embedded technology in poor countries, it must be
offered in a bundled suite of services of
applications. Blanketing a neighborhood in a
WiFi field is not sufficient, offering it as part
of an information kiosk is ideal.
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Three Questions

• If information technology is to be used for
  international development, are we aware of the
  ways in which patterns of dependency and
  underdevelopment are reproduced?
• Can we avoid dependency by encouraging local
  ingenuity?
• Can we avoid underdevelopment by fully
  researching acquisition and ownership costs?

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