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How important is the Internet and Technology to the Progress of Developing Countries

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Title: How important is the Internet and Technology to the Progress of Developing Countries


1
How important is the Internet and Technology to
the Progress of Developing Countries
  • Iain McNaught

2
Big Divisions
  • Percentage of Continent using Internet
  • Africa 2.7
  • Asia 9.0
  • Europe 35.2
  • North America 68.2
  • Clearly a big divide
  • Is it a concern though do developing countries
    really need to be online at this stage.

Internet World Stats- http//www.internetworldsta
ts.com/stats.htm
3
Reasons for the Divide
  • Many African governments have unbeneficial
    policies concerning technology
  • Protection of large public Telco
  • Governments often dont allow smaller regional
    telecomms companies to connect countries locally
    would damage the large Telco
  • Illegality of VOIP Only for the benefit of the
    public Telco
  • Would you drive from here to Dundee and back to
    go to Morrisons? Probably not
  • Most routing in Africa has to go through North
    America
  • Africa spends 400million talking to itself
    ITU
  • Important for the people to support local
    projects, lobby the governments for change,
    companies should host content locally even if its
    more expensive in the short term

4
So what can technology and the Internet actually
do for a Developing Nation
  • 3 Key areas
  • Health
  • Education
  • Business

5
Health
  • Many health websites on the internet
  • Unclear how much of the information can be
    trusted
  • Reliable information could be used to help give
    information on how to combat certain disease
  • Problem is that major diseases are borne out of
    poverty itself
  • Hard to see how technology can help fight against
    AIDs, Malaria, TB.
  • Would it not be better to spend money training a
    handful of professionals rather than providing
    lot of data to many

6
Health - Satellife
  • Charity setup to bring health information to the
    developing world via technology
  • 10,000 people in 120 countries sharing
    information electronically
  • Various projects
  • Recent project involved providing health care
    workers with hand held computers
  • Easy access to information
  • www.satellife.org

7
Education
  • Students in developing countries miss out on
    wealth of information Internet offers
  • School in Uruguay - 100/book
  • Due to high cost of importation
  • 100/subject/class Many
  • Only teacher can have a copy
  • 100 can now actually get you a laptop

8
100 Laptop
  • MIT have formed a non-profit organisation called
    OLPC (One Laptop Per Child)
  • Target is ambitious 1Billion Children worldwide
    to have a laptop each
  • So how so cheap?
  • No need for sales, marketing, distribution and
    profit
  • Modern day laptops consume a lot of power in
    running bloated applications.
  • Comparable with a large suspension cable most
    of the strength ends up being in supporting
    itself
  • These laptops will run lightweight Linux
    Operating System and rely upon open source
    software
  • Challenge is to then get these machines online

9
Business
  • Information is very important for businesses
  • Everybody at every level of a business needs
    access to information
  • Investors, students, employees, citizens in
    general need information about
  • Operation of organisations
  • R e-selling to other business users or to
    customers
  • Choosing goods and services to make
  • Information comes in various forms
  • business journals, textbooks bulletins, reports,
    standard specifications, and correspondence
  • Can be very hard to locate and store masses of
    information
  • Technology can play a key role here

10
Business
  • Many tales of developing world business doing
    great things through internet
  • San Salvador man who sold coffee beans for a
    record price using the internet
  • Disintermediation man was able to sell directly
    to his distributors.
  • Interesting to here such stories but lets take a
    closer look at what the Internet can do for a
    small third world village

11
Rovieng, Cambodia
  • Very primitive village
  • No telephone service
  • Houses connected by dirt track
  • Locals made money working in the rice fields
  • Very disconnected from the Western World
  • Could compare to middle of the Amazon jungle
  • Eskimos in Northern Canada
  • So very remote indeed

12
Experiment Internet In Rovieng
  • American aid organisation gave the funds for
    handful of desktops and a satellite for internet
    connection
  • What were the results?
  • Locals started making scarves again
  • Traditional art that died out during Khmer
    Rouges reign of terror
  • Used the Internet to sell scarves

13
Profits
  • Profits from scarf selling were used to start pig
    farming business in the village
  • Good money was made from pig farming
  • Local people were now making as much money in a
    month as they did in a year in the rice fields
  • Children could finish their education instead of
    dropping out to work to support their family

14
Sustainable Development
  • Sustainable development defined as
  • a characteristic that enables a development
    program to survive once the proponents
    disassociate themselves
  • Very important that people can support themselves
    and continue to do so even after help is no
    longer being given
  • Better to give a man a fishing net than a fish
  • Signs of this in Rovieng as the people showed
    enterprise and are now making money for
    themselves
  • Aid agency still paying for the running of the
    satellite however

15
Success Story?
  • In this example this village were very lucky to
    get the help they got
  • Aid agencies have limited budgets
  • How much of these budgets should be geared
    towards projects such as this one
  • Cant really start installing satellites in
    places that are even worse off I.e. no clean
    water
  • Cases like this then money could be better
    allocated
  • Its possible that projects such as this are not
    cost effective in the long run
  • Really depends on how enterprising the people can
    be

16
Conclusions
  • Internet and other technology have a definite
    place in terms of developing nations
  • Can be useful in health, education and business
  • Helps contribute to sustainable development
  • Integration of technology should be gradual and
    should not impede too much on budgets for other
    things e.g vacinnations, infrastructure,
    sanitation
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