[WSIS CS-Plenary] Article on Mashable on the Web and developing countries

[catherine]

FYI:

Why the Web Is Useless in Developing Countries – And How to Fix It

Like many who study the struggles of developing countries, Steve Bratt has
done the math on the potential of mobile phones. The United Nation’s
International Telecommunication Union estimated that at the end of 2010
there were 5.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide and that a
full 90% of the world population now has access to a mobile network. In
contrast, only about 2 billion people have Internet access.

The high prevalence of mobile phones (even in developing countries,
penetration rates were expected to reach 68% by the end of 2010) has led
many non-profits to choose mobile networks as tools for positive change.
Mobile banking in Kenya has helped farmers increase their incomes, 300,000
people in Bangladesh signed up to learn English through their phones, and
many consider mobile phones the key to developing nations.

But Bratt, now the CEO of The World Wide Web Foundation, came up with a
different hypothesis when he looked at the 3.3 billion-person gap between
mobile phone users and Internet users. Theoretically, he thinks that the
two numbers could one day even out as people use their phones to log onto
the Internet.

Read more:

http://mashable.com/2011/02/04/web-developing-world


-- 
Catherine Roy
http://www.catherine-roy.net