Further to Vikas's question on the cost of "bridging the global digital divide" and comments from Pamela and Nikhil I would like to present a concrete example of setting up 4 Multipurpose Community Telecentres in Northern Mindanao <http://www.barangay-mct.org/>. The total cost of the project was about $200,000 USD plus in-kind contributions of village communities. The issue is not the cost of technical equipment as calculated by Nikhil. Not every household needs a computer. Village centers would by quite enough for now. (As a TV set for the whole village in the old days.) The main cost is the training (computer skills development) and production of information materials relevant to people who will work with computers. The connectivity is also not the most important at the beginning, but computer literacy is. (As Pamela mentioned there are many useful standalone applications). We must think about the whole process of introducing the new technology and its cost in the context of social, cultural and technical aspects .
I think that the discussion on the cost of bridging the digital divide is much needed and we should also identify sources of financing. I prefer to talk about digital unite and I have plenty of examples of digital technology uniting not dividing people. Zbig Mikolajuk ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.globalknowledge.org>
