SV: [governance] IS THE DIGITAL DIVIDE A PHANTOM?

Carlton A Samuels carlton.samuels at uwimona.edu.jm
Mon Jul 30 12:02:02 EDT 2007


Thanks for - yet again- outlining the reality for some stakeholders!

 

Carlton Samuels

 

  _____  

From: kwasi boakye-akyeampong [mailto:kboakye1 at yahoo.co.uk] 
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 7:16 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Norbert Bollow
Subject: Re: SV: [governance] IS THE DIGITAL DIVIDE A PHANTOM?

 

Norbert, you wrote:
"This of course needs to be funded somehow, but as
soon as this has been achieved, all visually disabled people
everywhere will be able to benefit from this ...".

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.

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. 

Greetings,
Kwasi

Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:

Kicki Nordstrom wrote:

> World Blind Union has tried to negotiate with the producer of screen
> reading programs, that we from industrial could pay more to reduce
> the price for customer in developing countries. But this was not
> possible due to business tradition.

I think this calls for the development of a good screen reader program
as Free Software. This of course needs to be funded somehow, but as
soon as this has been achieved, all visually disabled people
everywhere will be able to benefit from this, and will be able to
always use the newest version without big extra costs, without being
contrained by the "business traditions" of a profit-oriented company.

Greetings,
Norbert.


-- 
Norbert Bollow http://Norbert.ch
President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG http://SIUG.ch
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance







............................................................................
..................................................

"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?" - Rabbi Hillal

............................................................................
..................................................

  

  _____  

Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign
<http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http:/uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/winter07.htm
l>  up for your free account today.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20070730/7ca6508b/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: message-footer.txt
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20070730/7ca6508b/attachment.txt>


More information about the Governance mailing list