Closing on the Digital Divide

Developing economies like India face a tremendous challenge in bridging the digital divide. There's a wide gap amongst the rich & the poor and the literate & the illiterate. This is also hugely reflected by the poor PC penetration numbers that are amongst the lowest in the world.

The price levels, poor infrastructure pose huge challenges in the way of increasing these numbers. But more than the price, the real need of a PC for an individual is missing. A PC needs to become a utility like a refrigerator, television, radio or a washing machine where a user can see the need of a PC for himself. Currently a common man cannot find a significant reason to own a PC.

The applications of a PC define the utility for a PC. Internet has emerged as the most
hottest application of a PC amongst other applications such as the office tools or desktop games and the like. In the Indian context, the infrastructure for internet is poor, costly, no significant content and very few services available which an individual can make use of.

A Part of being digital is to have access to services passing on the benefits of technology and be able to change the way of living. I am trying to think of a two sided approach for bridging this gap. On the one side we need to decrease cost, improve infrastructure but more importantly also provide content & services which fulfills the need of an individual and affect his way of living.

Secondly to make use of the growing mobile world, where digital devices can be mobilised, even though these cannot provide a rich internet experience but can enable services which can impact the lives of people of bridging digital divide is to stress on mobile technology, data services, improve interfaces, technology and harness it to build a services infrastructure providing services which provides benefits of technology to the user.

The point for building this service infrastructure web is to provide services which a person can make use by himself without being dependent on anyone else. A fisherman when check himself about weather conditions from his mobile phone. Some one's father can buy a train ticket through a voice gateway. A person can have access to information that he needs.

Providing essential services which are usable reflecting a change in a common man's lifestyle will be a significant step forward in this direction. Without building this significant utility, mere increase in penetration numbers is much like running a literacy campaign where an illiterate person who can read/write his name is considered literate even though he is still ignorant and is still left aloof from the benefits of literacy.