NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, April 22, 2005

Is the digital divide dead?
Yes, concluded speakers at a Santa Clara University symposium Thursday where participants agreed that throwing computers at the developing world isn’t the answer to global inequity. What’s really needed is a bridge to close the knowledge divide, according to the speakers.
“The problem comes down to much more than technology,’’ said Geoffrey Bowker, executive director of the university’s Center for Science, Technology and Society, which hosted the conference, also sponsored by Applied Materials. “What we need is open source science . . . a framework where knowledge and information is shared with the developing world.’’
Speakers at the event, attended by about 200, talked about the importance of creating a “digital commons’’ — a public, online space for knowledge that would help alleviate social and economic problems in poor countries, as well as inequities between the developed and developing worlds.
Story found here.