Digital Reach

[

] 157

HE RECENT

IVE

8 concert still echoes in the background

of my thoughts, and it strikes me as odd that the idea of

bridging the digital divide remains a controversial goal.

Aside from the obvious moral imperative, even in the most prag-

matic economic terms, helping to lift our fellow citizens out of

abject poverty is a good policy. Some of the chief objections to

bridging the digital divide are that only the corrupt local leader-

ship profits, that the funds will be inevitably mismanaged and

wasted, or that it simply makes no sense to give poor people cell

phones, computers and broadband access. This last argument

erroneously implies that if technology is introduced it will be at

the expense of ‘basic’ needs like fresh water, food, healthcare and

education. This is of course short-sighted and passively discrim-

inatory. Even worse, this argument subverts the resolve and

dignity that our less fortunate citizens consistently display in the

face of almost unimaginable difficulty.

The expanse of the digital divide was recently outlined by Jose

Maria Figueres Olsen, former Chairman of the United Nations

(UN) ICT Task Force, in a recent speech to the UN General

Assembly. One third of the world’s population has never made a

telephone call; 70 per cent of the world’s poorest live in rural and

remote areas where access to information and communication

technologies (ICT), even to a telephone, is often scarce; and even

when access is available, most of the information exchanged over

global networks such as the Internet is in English, the language

of less than 10 per cent of the world’s population.

These are eye-opening statistics. So, just because it does not

seem feasible or profitable at first glance to help feed, clothe and

educate these people by offering them access to the information

they need to improve themselves, are we not also dooming them

to an interminable cycle of poverty? Are not adequate healthcare,

literacy and access to information similarly ‘basic’ human needs,

not luxuries? As the old axiom goes: “If you give a man a fish, he

will eat for a day, if you give him a net, he will eat for a lifetime.”

And if you teach him to make a net, generations will no longer go

hungry, but will indeed prosper.

This is not just wishful thinking. The fact is that even in the

poorest regions of our world, healthcare and literacy are

acknowledged as key aspects of raising living standards as well

as being a vital part of any long-term poverty reduction strat-

egy; this dynamic of health and literacy is long-established by

the World Bank. It has also been proved that delivery of health-

care and literacy is dramatically improved with the development

of local ICT.

So, bridging the digital divide means more than just poverty

reduction. Its ultimate objective is ‘prosperity creation,’ i.e. to

raise standards of living through the use of ICT, where genera-

tions of people will advance their lives and communities to the

point where a hand-to-mouth existence is replaced by participa-

tion in the global market place as producers and consumers

through the means of information and communication.

Nevertheless, it is important that aid be correctly administered,

or the above arguments might indeed have validity. Aid must be

directly injected into small clinics, schools, farms and local busi-

ness in order to succeed. In this way the economic tide will rise

from the bottom and lift even the smallest of boats. ICT is

uniquely capable of providing just this kind of strategic support,

as the following remarkable examples show.

Healthcare in remotest Africa

Adequate healthcare is the first step to creating prosperity. Ciaran

Ryan of the Centre for Digital Government offers a moving portrait

of how ICT is already making a dramatic impact on the quality

and availability of healthcare in the most remote parts of Africa

for the most brittle of patients.

In Ryan’s article,

Wireless is the Best Medicine

, a desperate

mother arrives with her sick baby at a rural clinic in Tsilitwa in the

Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The closest hospital or

telephone is miles away. In an examination room, a nurse turns

on a web cam that is positioned to take clear pictures of the tiny

patient on the examination bed. Seconds later, an image of the

baby is visible on the clinic’s computer screen. The nurse picks

up a wireless phone and calls the nearest doctor at the Sulenkama

hospital, more than 50 miles away. The doctor views the same

picture of the baby on his PC.

The ‘tele-consultation’ begins with simultaneous voice and

video communication between the doctor and nurse. However,

the doctor is still unsure about the diagnosis and asks the nurse

to take a picture of the baby using the digital camera. She does

so and e-mails a copy to the closest university hospital, which

offers even more comprehensive diagnostic resources. The two

doctors consult while the mother waits on tenterhooks. It is not

long, however, before the video image along with information

provided by the clinic nurse enables the two doctors to complete

their diagnosis. They immediately convey a treatment recom-

mendation to the nurse via wireless telephone.

This is an example of how an infant, who would likely have

previously been doomed by a simple childhood malady, has

instead survived by having access to the best medical care avail-

able, delivered to the remotest part of Africa via ICT.

Egypt: vision for e-Learning

Siemens has been an important partner with Egypt for more than

100 years. And just as we have helped this historic and culturally

rich nation develop its infrastructure, we have participated in its

vision of social progress.

ICT and bridging the digital divide

Dr Thomas Ganswindt, Member of the Corporate Executive Committee for Siemens AG and

President and CEO of Siemens Communications