 | A Digital Revolution for the World's Remotest Regions $1 billion investment in technology helps to bridge the 'Digital Divide' between industrialized countries and the developing world Story: The World Economic Forum, Davos, 24-28 January 2006 January 24-28th, Government, academic and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos will discuss how to bridge the mammoth 'Digital Divide' between western society and developing countries of the third world. The digital revolution has established broadband Internet in well over 60% of industrialized countries, but below 1% in the rest of the developing world. One of the new and much discussed initiatives is installing Wi-MAX in remote regions of the world. WiMax is a long range wireless technology that provides high-speed Internet links without the necessity for telephone lines and cables. The goal is to make the Internet a truly global information tool,not one reserved for developed countries. In Egypt, Brazil, South Africa, India and China, the digital transformations are underway. Intel has already installed these high-speed Internet links and computers into classrooms and medical clinics in several small communities. A few are in some of the most remote inhabited places on Earth. Intel is donating one billion dollars over the next five years to transform underdeveloped communities to help improve the health, education, and business skills of its residents. Two prime examples are in Egypt and in the middle of the Amazon River. Working with Egypt's government, business and education leaders, Intel installed a state-of-the-art WiMAX network to connect two public schools, a health care center on wheels, a municipal building and an e-government services kiosk in the small rural town of Oseem. Intel also donated and installed computers in the mobile health center and PC labs at the two schools where students and teachers can regularly connect to the outside world for the first time. The Internet is a great technological advancement because it helps us learn and advance," said Khaled Mohamed Ragab, a 14-year-old student at Oseem's BORTOS School. "We can also talk to the rest of the world and meet new friends on the Internet." Healthcare workers can now remotely diagnose patients too, access training programs and receive advice from specialists hundreds of miles over video links using an advancement called Telemedicine., And, children in schools now have access to the vast knowledge resources on the web. The World Economic Forum in Davos is focusing on emerging economies as they start to integrate more rapidly into the global network and Intel's $1 billion investment in under-developed communities reflects this trend. "The next billion Internet users will be from rural areas like Oseem," said Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, who toured the village to explore how similar programs could be replicated in other regions. This issue has led Barrett, who also chairs the United Nation's Global Alliance for ICT and Development, to 10 developing countries from the Amazon to Africa in the past 100 days. "Technology has expanded what is possible for the people of Oseem," said Mr Barrett. "Intel is committed to support Egypt's leaders in accelerating access to technology so its people can get better health care, education and work skills." Intel's investment over the next five years is part of its World Ahead Program that aims to infuse under-developed communities with technology to help improve their education, healthcare work and business skills. Produced for Intel Wimax |
 | Bill Gates on Economy, Education, 3rd World (1/2) Bill Gates Fareed Zakaria GPS CNN BILL GATES: It's a very interesting crisis. And it's important that that things move forward, that markets are continuing to operate. And there's some type of correction we'll have to look at in terms of the leverage we allow, the complexity of balance sheets we allow. People who are so key that the government feels like they have to come in and bail them out. And there's a lot - a lot thinking the House go on. But fundamentally, the total market valuation of companies, companies' willingness to invest, right now we haven't seen a huge disruption in that. There may be - it looks like the economy may go down somewhat, but nothing like a big recession or a depression. And the amount of innovation taking place, the amount of investment is actually greater today than ever, because you not only have more American companies with more scientists and engineers and innovators, but now you have what Friedman calls the flat world, where you have people from all over, including lots of people in India and China, now contributing to new drug design, new software design, new energy generation design. And so, it's easy for people to underestimate that, despite these imbalances that are certainly scary, the rate of improvement on the medical front, the efficiency front, communication front is greater today than ever. And in fact, that's why you can take a problem like the food crisis and say, you know, let's get cheaper fertilizer, let's get better seeds - or the climate crisis and say, let's get a different source of energy that's both cheaper and doesn't generate CO2. And given the right timeframes, this rapid innovation will deliver those advances. : Well, certainly, whenever a stock goes up and then comes down, there was an element of a mistake that people thought, "Oh, this really is going to go on forever. It's a great thing." These financial companies, in terms of needing short-term funding, but not having liquid assets, so the short-term funding dried up, you get literally a bankruptcy. And so, all it took was a whiff of lack of confidence, and then the whole thing would come apart. That was not a stable enough structure to deal with the mistakes that were made in mortgage valuation, particularly the so-called AAA type instruments. Now, there have been people, including Warren Buffett, that have talked about this level of complexity, that some problems would come out of it. And so far, even despite this bailout, it doesn't look like fixing these problems is going to derail the economy in some dramatic way, where, you know, universities aren't doing research and drug companies aren't doing research, and software companies aren't hiring more engineers to sell to a market that, in the long run, is going to be a bigger and bigger market. And so, we're maneuvering to make sure we don't get this broad contagion. And experts who know, who live in that financial world, should be disagreeing and debating - taking a little time to figure out this fix. But it's not yet really cutting into the fundamental thing that's going on in the world today, which is an increase in the scale of the economy, increase in the number of people going to colleges, an increase in scientific understanding, which the Internet has facilitated this great sharing. So, you know, our foundation has scientists in China and India and the U.K. and the U.S. And during the course of a 24-hour period, they're sharing results, coming up with new ideas, and it's almost location-independent. We certainly have a challenge that we have too many high school dropouts in the United States. And the structure of our economy does not offer that many opportunities to somebody without at least a high school education. There's always this fallacy that there's a certain number of jobs. And ... : ... you know, it's a finite - yes, that somebody's taking them. Take farming jobs. Who took all those farming jobs? The tractor took those farming jobs. We feed this country on less than two percent of the population, and we're one of the great food exporters in the world. And so, automation took those jobs. Is that a bad thing? Do people miss plowing? I don't know. I never did it. As the economy expands, certain sectors like education and medical care and entertainment grow a lot bigger. And until we can say that our education is perfect and the, you know, medical care - everybody gets all the attention they need. You know, there are jobs there. We just need the breakthroughs that allow us to devote resources to those things. So, college educated people are going to have plenty of opportunities. But our education system is gypping people if it doesn't let them know that, if they drop out from high school, that they face a bleak future, so they're really engaged.... |
 | Bill Gates talks about his Foundation Bill Gates talks about the focus of his Foundation at the Clinton Global Initiative. |
 | The Digitial Divide Video produced by some of my Y12 AS Applied ICT students on the local digital divide |
 | The Digital Divide Here is a video about the digital divide. |
 | Sen Clinton Questions Bill Gates on American Competitiveness March 7, 2007 - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton questions Bill Gates on Strengthening American Competitiveness at a Senate HELP Committee hearing. For more information visit: www.clinton.senate.gov. |
 | Education and Bill Gates Education and Bill Gates. |
 | ITU-T Director speaks on ICTs and accessibility Mr. Malcolm Johnson, Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau of the ITU, speaks at the Thematic Workshop on Accessibility (13 November 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). ITU organized the Workshop entitled "Making accessibility a reality in emerging technologies" as part of the Internet Governance Forum bringing together experts from around the world to examine how best to take into account accessibility needs in emerging technologies. Related links: http://www.itu.int/intgov http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/accessibility/200711/index.html |
 | ICT BETT Show, Olympia January 2007 Video clips from The BETT Show at Olympia January 2007. The exhibition is an opportunity to see what is new and emerging in the world of ICT Education. BETT is the world's leading educational information & communications technologies (ICT) event, attracting 600 educational suppliers and over 28000 visitors, and bringing together the global teaching and learning community for four days of innovations and inspirations |
 | Democratic Presidential Candidates Discuss Digital Divide Democratic candidates Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel discuss the digital divide in the spin room following the June 28, 2007 presidential debate at Howard University. |
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