[WSIS CS-Plenary] Please answer these few ICT research questions, answers and respondant's emails will be kept confidential.

[Fouad Riaz Bajwa]

Dear Colleagues, 

I seek your answers and comments to the following questions: 

 

Q.1. Is Internet really the answer to providing the poor access to
information and a means to reduce the digital divide in light of the fact
that over 1 billion people in the world have not yet access to telephones
and over 2.5 billion lacking access to the basic necessities of life like
food, clean water, shelter, health, education, electricity and transport?

 

Q.2. Are you confident that the US$100 laptop per child project will be
successful in spite of various facts that there are over 6000 indigenous
languages spoken only in Africa and that to make such an initiative
successful, content will have to be provided in local or regional languages
for wider understanding and usage?

 

Q.3. Do you prefer Radio or Television over the Internet for providing
immediate access to information for the poor or would you prefer in taking 5
years to invest resources in developing an Information Technology ecosystem
for demand and supply chain creation and then regulatory frameworks for IT &
Telecom as well as IPR regimes?

 

Q.4. Would you prefer a US$1 Windup Radio Handset or a US$100 laptop to
provide access to information for the poor in localized content, please
explain why?

 

Q.5. How is Free and Open Source Software a means to innovation and
providing access to information whereas the underlying hardware equipment is
still very expensive with vendors charging superficial prices within the
global IT commercial market mechanisms?

 

 

(All inputs will be kept confidential. Mind you, this is a voluntary
request. It is neither an exam nor there is any negative marking for your
answers)

 

 

Regards
-----------------------
Fouad Riaz Bajwa
General Secretary - FOSS Advocate
FOSSFP: Free & Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan ® Secretariat
Office of the General Secretary
Lahore, Pakistan
Tel: 92-42-5030039
E-Mail: HYPERLINK "mailto:bajwa at fossfp.org"bajwa at fossfp.org
URL: HYPERLINK "http://www.fossfp.org"www.fossfp.org ; HYPERLINK
"http://www.ubuntu-pk.org"www.ubuntu-pk.org

Disclaimer:
This e-mail message is intended for its recipient only. If you have received
this e-mail in error, please discard it. The author of this e- mail or
FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan (R) takes no
responsibility for the material, implicit or explicit.

 

 


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