- from the introduction
"Alfonso addresses the need for a global movement to change the present situation of technological inequity and shares his valuable insights on the challenges and opportunities of the digital revolution. Alfonso Molina is Professor of Technology Strategy and Director of the Technology Management and Policy Programme (TechMaPP), The University of Edinburgh. He has written extensively on innovation and technological capabilities, particularly from the perspective of his 'sociotechnical constituencies' action research programme. Alfonso has worked on strategic documents for the European Commission in areas such as microprocessors, multimedia, information society, e-commerce, and technologies for major business and work challenges. He has worked with the cities of Edinburgh, Rome and Stockholm and he is Chairman of the international juries of the global contests: the Stockholm Challenge Award and Rome's Global Junior Challenge. He wrote the strategy for the Global Cities Dialogue and its Declaration now signed by over 100 cities across the world. Alfonso designed the www.e-inclusionsite.org as an instrument to stimulate the global e-inclusion movement, and to raise funding for projects from poor areas of the world."
Some of the questions asked in this interview include:
- What are the main obstacles and challenges faced by developing countries in building telecommunications infrastructure and accessing Internet technology?
- Describe how some countries have succeeded in addressing the digital divide where others have failed.
- How can ICT be used by the social movement to facilitate investment of capital in developing countries to adopt programmes which promote sustainability and infrastructure which support the digital economy?
- Companies such as Microsoft and Sun Microsystems provide donations to schools in developing countries as part of a plan to increase market share for their products. What types of efforts are being implemented to develop positive partnerships between industry and government to maximize the penetration of technology and its use by citizens in developing countries?
- What do you think is the responsibility of industrialized countries to assist developing countries in accessing technology?
- What inspired you to create e-inclusion site and how do you plan to use the site to stimulate participation by people and organizations in the battle against the digital divide? What will determine the success of this initiative?
- In your work, you have written in support of a social movement - a free flowing association of people who collaborate in pursuit of changing the present situation of technological inequity. What socio-political or socio-economic environments must exist for the social movement to succeed in decreasing the digital divide?
- excerpt from Dr. Molina
"Good examples of programs which address the digital divide include Costa Rica's effort to provide e-mail to every citizen, or the Chilean Enlaces Program to bring ICTs to all schools. There are also efforts in developed countries such as the UK and USA under the Clinton Administration. The irony is that vicious circles of poverty are difficult to break and while for rich countries, ICT services are cheaper and better, in poor countries they are more expensive and inefficient. At the same time, it is difficult however to talk of success or failure in absolute or static terms. It is rather a learning process with successes in certain areas and lack of achievement and failures in others. For instance, access to email or computers does not necessarily mean effective integration of new technologies to improve the quality of life and work of people. Installation is not the same as implementation. Spreading the benefits of ICTs to ALL, especially in poor countries, will take a large effort which involves the entire society not just government. In this respect, there are many other experiences taking place at many other levels of regional, local and community levels that can teach a great deal. Even the "failures" show the obstacles we have to face or the new solutions for the next steps.
I should say that earning in the sense of the individual and social appropriation of information, knowledge and experience for effective change is a multi-dimensional, multi-mechanism and contextualized activity where general insights from failures and "best-practices" should be innovative with the relative opportunities, difficulties, challenges, instruments and requirement from the ground. "Best practices" are not absolute or universal recipes, they must be contextualized to specific realities. For this reason, it is important that "best-practice" case studies should be able to reveal the content, context and dynamics of processes of change, highlighting lessons that could be of general as well as particular value. But this is only part of the widespread learning process required to transform the "digital-divide" into a "digital opportunity" and, ideally, an information society for all. We require shared and "integrated learning environments" that combine all sorts of activities, instruments, and incentives to generate, diffuse, and help appropriate and implement varieties of knowledge (e.g., formal, informal, tacit, meta-knowledge (cultural), etc.) associated with transformation experiences.
Today, it is possible to find some excellent efforts to identify, formalize and disseminate "best-practices" through channels such as the Development Gateway, OneWorld's Digital Opportunity Channel, Benton Foundation/One World's Digital Network (Check), The Stockholm Challenge Award and the Rome's Global Junior Challenge and others. Now it's the time to start moving to the formation of "integrated learning environments" that build on this information and other activities to stimulate, enrich and make effective current and new grassroots processes of change to overcome the digital divide...."
For the full interview on the Development Gateway site - click here.
For the PDF version of the full interview - click here.
