Digital Divide
16 August 2017
Internet speeds across Africa are still far below the global minimum standard Quartz
It would take more than a day to download a high definition movie of 7.5 gigabytes in countries with the slowest internet speeds in the world. It turns out most of those countries are in Africa, data from a global broadband speed league shows.
11 July 2017
To Close America's Digital Divide, Microsoft to Harness Unused Television Channels New York Times
Silicon Valley has dreamed up hot air balloons, drones and constellations of mini-satellites to connect the world to the internet. Now Microsoft is adding its own moonshot to solve the digital divide into that mix.
04 June 2017
Floating balloons a radical plan to expand global internet services ABC News
A cluster of strange objects has been drifting high over the Australian continent in the past week, and if not for publicly-available plane-tracking applications, they may well have cruised past without anyone noticing.
22 May 2017
No, Google's Not a Bird: Bringing the Internet to Rural India New York Times
Babulal Singh Neti was sitting with his uncle on a recent afternoon, trying to persuade him of the merits of the internet.
21 May 2017
Community Forum: What are your hopes and fears about the Internet? Internet Society
On May 11, 2017, the Internet Society in collaboration with the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House hosted a panel discussion on the impact of the Internet on societies.
18 May 2017
Google owner Alphabet balloons connect flood-hit Peru BBC News
“Tens of thousands” of Peruvians have been getting online using Project Loon, the ambitious connectivity project from Google's parent company, Alphabet.
20 April 2017
Is the internet really democratic?: How the 'wired world' excludes women and other marginalized persons by Sri Lankan writer Subha Wijesiriwardena Subha Wijesiriwardena blog
It’s often said that the internet democratizes information and even knowledge itself. We more or less accept this to be true; the internet shattered the elite stronghold on ‘knowledge’. The internet has not only made information more freely available but has changed the very way we understand knowledge and information. What we understand by democratisation is not only that things are made available to more people but that they come to belong to more people. The internet was supposed to be the very embodiment of this – it belongs to no one — it belongs to everyone.
19 March 2017
UN Broadband Commission: Time for a "New Deal" if Broadband is to reach everyone, everywhere International Telecommunication Union
The Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development held its 2017 Spring Meeting in Hong Kong, SAR of China, today, and committed to concrete actions that will spur the roll-out of broadband around the world. Currently, some 5 billion people are without mobile broadband access, meaning that the paths to access digital services and applications are currently blocked for much of the world's population, thereby holding back progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
27 December 2016
How the internet is failing to drive economic development where promised by Nicolas Friederici, Researcher, Digital Economies, University of Oxford The Conversation
With almost half the world's population now online, attempts to spread the internet continue unabated. The likes of Facebook and Google offer data services for "free", while satellites, drones, and balloons are used to cover those places that traditional technologies have not been able to reach.
08 October 2016
Data drought: Rural Australians find alternative ways to get online despite Sky Muster rollout ABC News
A grassroots internet revolution is underway in regional Australia, as small telecommunications companies and farmers try to help end the data drought.
26 July 2016
Can the internet reboot Africa? With smartphone use and web penetration soaring, Africa is set for a tech revolution – but only if its infrastructure can support it The Guardian
You can buy sunlight with your phone, conduct an eye test on someone 100 miles away and attend a church service on your iPad. There are apps for investing in cows, for sending parcels and for mapping unrest. And soon you'll be able to deliver blood and medicines by drone.
24 May 2016
Microsoft Awards First Grants to Help Expand Global Internet Access New York Times
Microsoft has largely stood by as other technology giants like Facebook and Google have begun work on grand plans for balloons, satellites, drones, simplified apps and even bicycle hot spots to deliver Internet access to the four billion or so people around the world who are not yet online.
19 May 2016
Connecting everyone to internet 'would add $6.7tn to global economy' The Guardian
Bringing internet access to the 4.1 billion people in the world who do not have it would increase global economic output by $6.7 trillion (£4.6tr), raising 500 million people out of poverty, according to a study by PwC.
What the G7 must do for internet growth and security World Economic Forum
In 2014, researchers from the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company projected that as much as $21 trillion in global economic value creation would depend on the robustness of cyber-security over five to seven years. That's as big as the entire U.S. economy.
08 May 2016
WSIS 2016: "On its own, internet access is not enough. Let's build greater social equality" Association for Progressive Communications
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process is considered a cornerstone of international norms and discourse on internet policy and governance. As the process marks its 11th anniversary, the 'ICT for development' community met in Geneva between 2-6 May to continue to work for a people-centric, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information.
24 February 2016
Thousands of low-income Australian families unable to afford internet at home, Smith Family says ABC News
Australia has one of the highest internet access rates in the world, but there are concerns children from disadvantaged backgrounds are being left behind in the digital revolution.
09 February 2016
India blocks Zuckerberg's free net app BBC News
India's telecoms regulator has blocked Facebook's Free Basics internet service app as part of a ruling in favour of net neutrality.
30 January 2016
India, Egypt say no thanks to free Internet from Facebook Washington Post
Connecting people to the Internet is not easy in this impoverished farming district of wheat and millet fields, where working camels can be glimpsed along roads that curve through the low-slung Aravalli Hills.
18 January 2016
The internet - not an equaliser BBC News
Here's the story about the global impact of the internet. In the last 20 years, the digital revolution and its leapfrog technologies have allowed developing countries to close the gap with richer nations, and have brought huge advances in health, education and transparent government.
14 January 2016
Internet Yields Uneven Dividends and May Widen Inequality, Report Says New York Times
Can the Internet save the world? In some places, it has helped curb corruption, encouraged more girls to go to school and enabled citizens to monitor election violence.
15 December 2015
With high-level forum, UN Assembly aims to narrow digital divide, harness power of information technology United Nations
Ten years after the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society, delegates from Member States and observer entities are meeting at UN Headquarters starting tomorrow to identify emerging trends, fresh priorities and innovations for advancing information and communications technologies.
07 December 2015
Google launches wi-fi network in Kampala, Uganda BBC News
Google has launched its first wi-fi network in Uganda's capital Kampala, as part of a project to broaden access to affordable high-speed internet.
29 October 2015
Alphabet, Indonesian companies to expand Web access via balloons Reuters
Alphabet Inc, the new holding company for Google, has teamed up with three Indonesian telecommunications companies to expand Internet access in that country using solar-powered balloons.
26 October 2015
Facebook's Internet for All Is a Tough Sell in India New York Times
If Mark Zuckerberg hopes to deliver on his vision of bringing the Internet to the four billion people who lack it, the Facebook chief will first need to make his plan more appealing to salesmen like Shoaib Khan.
22 October 2015
Poor urban women in developing world use Internet less than men, lack skills, cash - survey Reuters
Poor women in cities in developing countries are 50 percent less likely than poor men to use the Internet, and blame the high cost and their lack of skills for the gap, researchers said on Wednesday.
