<div class="MsoNormal">Hi Kwasi and friends,<o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">My thinking is that no matter what, I still believe that digital divide is not a phantom. Although it is apparent that the divide may not be closed or abridged to<span style=""> </span>a greater extent but it is a motivation for most governments of developing countries to wake up and do what they should ordinarily do in terms of infrastructure provisions.<o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">For some of us, it is a call on developing countries to live up to standard prescribed ovally by the developed nations of the world, even though there may not be any clear cut line as to when this divide would be closed or near it, it is expected that by bringing the concept to the fore of governance, leaders especially in least developing countries would be 'inwardly' worried and try to catch up.<o:p></o:p></div> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman";">Economically speaking, it could be phantom, but for most social advocates, it is not because it gives hope to those at the bottom of the tunnel that one day their lives would be improved upon, but we must not forget that as one economies improve his demands increases as well as and there is the law anywhere that states that those advanced countries of today should be static in development and wait for less developed to meet up before forging ahead.</span><br><br><b><i>kwasi boakye-akyeampong <kboakye1@yahoo.co.uk></i></b> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> Norbert, you wrote:<br>"<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">This of course needs to be funded somehow, but as</span><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">soon as this has been achieved, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">all
visually disabled people</span></span><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">everywhere will be able to benefit from this</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> ...</span>".<br><br>I disagree with the underlined bit because in the developing (under-developed) regions, even the non-visually impaired are struggling to have access to computers. Internet access is even worse. So for the visually impaired it is worse for them in developing countries.<br><br>Believe me, the digital divide issue is worse than we make it sound. Most of the solutions we propose are just not practicable in the deprived regions. They are models fit for the developed countries. For instance, most developing countries are struggling with electricity supply even in the cities. Most rural communities are not connected to the national electricity grid. So bridging
the digital divide goes beyond providing them with computers. <br><br>Greetings,<br>Kwasi<br><br><b><i>Norbert Bollow <nb@bollow.ch></i></b> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> Kicki Nordstrom <kicki.nordstrom@srfriks.org> wrote:<br><br>> World Blind Union has tried to negotiate with the producer of screen<br>> reading programs, that we from industrial could pay more to reduce<br>> the price for customer in developing countries. But this was not<br>> possible due to business tradition.<br><br>I think this calls for the development of a good screen reader program<br>as Free Software. This of course needs to be funded somehow, but as<br>soon as this has been achieved, all visually disabled people<br>everywhere will be able to benefit from this, and will be able to<br>always use the newest version without big extra costs, without being<br>contrained by the "business
traditions" of a profit-oriented company.<br><br>Greetings,<br>Norbert.<br><br><br>-- <br>Norbert Bollow <nb@bollow.ch> http://Norbert.ch<br>President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG http://SIUG.ch<br>____________________________________________________________<br>You received this message as a subscriber on the list:<br> governance@lists.cpsr.org<br>To be removed from the list, send any message to:<br> governance-unsubscribe@lists.cpsr.org<br><br>For all list information and functions, see:<br> http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance<br></nb@bollow.ch></kicki.nordstrom@srfriks.org></blockquote><br><br><br><div><font class="sqq"><strong><font color="#007f40" face="system">..............................................................................................................................</font></strong></font></div> <div><font class="sqq"><strong><font color="#007f40" face="system">“If I am not for myself, who will be for
me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?”</font></strong> - <font face="arial black"><font face="system">Rabbi Hillal</font></font></font></div> <div><font class="sqq"><font face="arial black"><font color="#007f40" face="System"><strong>..............................................................................................................................</strong></font></font></font></div><div> </div><hr size="1"> Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, <a href="http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/winter07.html">sign up for your free account today</a>.____________________________________________________________<br>You received this message as a subscriber on the list:<br> governance@lists.cpsr.org<br>To be removed from the list, send any message to:<br> governance-unsubscribe@lists.cpsr.org<br><br>For all list information and functions, see:<br>
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