[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: The Economist on the 'real digitaldivide'

[Anriette Esterhuysen]

Hallo Robert, actually it was not APC.  It was a group of organisations 
of which APC was one.  The others were IT for Change, Digital Divide 
Data, Nexus Research, and Bread for All.

The drafting was an effort of Parminder, Sean and myself, with several 
others helping with editing.

It does not make all the points that need to be made... and in fact, we 
have separate longer drafts from Parminder and Sean that cover a 
broader range of issues... but we wanted to keep it short to increase 
the change of it being published.

The issues need broader debate. Mobile phones have been incredibly 
powerful and I think many of us in ICT for development did not, or 
have not taken the potential of mobile telephone seriously enough.

However, the current mobile hype makes me feel like someone who 
has seriously wanted to learn to read and write and then, while trying 
to enrol for adult education, the 'teacher' sells me a TV set saying: 
"Here, take this, now you will never need to learn to read and write."

Anriette


> Anriette:
> 
> I asked the other day if anyone was going to 
> submit a letter to the economist. Glad APC did. I 
> hope they publish the response letter.
> 
> regards
> 
> Robert
> 

------------------------------------------------------
Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director
Association for Progressive Communications
anriette at apc.org
http://www.apc.org
PO Box 29755, Melville, South Africa. 2109
Tel. 27 11 726 1692
Fax 27 11 726 1692



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