Fwd: Common Ground Elusive as Technology Have-Nots Meet Haves(fwd)

[John Hibbs <hibbs@bfranklin.edu>]

This is a long post reminding subscribers what we already know - that 
the span between the technology haves and have nots is wide, probably 
getting wider each day.  Our challenge during GLDIII is to continue 
to make the event as accessible as possible, to reach as many as 
possible.  Like INET 99, our headquarters will be in California. 
Unlike them, no one will have to travel further than their desktop; 
and we won't charge a ruble, mark, yen, or penny, English, Canadian 
or American.

{But it does, probably, mean we can't show, on event day, on our 
site, the slick technology and very beautiful slides Doug made on his 
backpacking and canoeing trip 
(http://swc2.hccs.cc.tx.us/rowhtml/trips1.htm).
(lots of ram needed just to download G-2) That doesn't preclude us 
from showcasing these by pointing registrants to same; some will be 
able to view, some won't.  More on this later, a separate thread, 
methinks}

However compelling such (Rowlet) slides are, the most powerful 
learning medium remains written communications - text based stuff - 
poetry and prayer, argument and evidence.  If we can locate the 
people who write powerful stuff, we will post their communications 
well in advance of the event, making for better real time questions 
and answers (telephone/webcast) during the GLDIII. (Note:  In some 
cases we may be able to email the transcripts of the conversations 
very close to real time----which means that *anyone* with email 
connectivity can participate.)

Those who wish to be either speaker or lead any of the Topics I have 
mentioned previously, are invited to contact me.

Finall this.  I like to think for that -for some-, GLD can be a 
"lasting excitement" event, about which Terry can talk 
authoritatively.  Again, this year, we will sing the tune that "no 
one should be left behind".

*That* is very, very large "meta" task, as the following post well illustrates.

John Hibbs
www.bfranklin.edu

With thanks to Michael Gurstein and Irfan Khan for the below:

>Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 12:31:05 -0300 (ADT)
>From: Michael Gurstein <mgurst@ccen.uccb.ns.ca>
>Subject: Common Ground Elusive as Technology Have-Nots Meet Haves (fwd)
>To: ua-c@ccen.uccb.ns.ca, ict-4-led <ict-4-led@chatsubo.com>
>Sender: ict-4-led@chatsubo.com
>Reply-To: ict-4-led@chatsubo.com
>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 18:06:14 +0500
>From: Irfan Khan <KhanIA@super.net.pk>
>To: s-asia-it@apnic.net
>Subject: Common Ground Elusive as Technology Have-Nots Meet Haves
>
>[New York Times on the INET 99 conference]
>
>July 8, 1999
>
>Common Ground Elusive as Technology Have-Nots Meet Haves
>
>By KATIE HAFNER
>
>San Jose, Calif. -- For the average Internet user in the United
>States, life is a never-ending stream of dilemmas: Upgrade now or
>later. Order I.S.D.N. or wait for cable modem service to arrive. Buy
>the Palm V organizer or go with the one that connects to the Web.
>Check e-mail while on vacation or leave the laptop at home.
>
>But a conference held here in June underscored a very different
>reality: in many corners of the world, there are dozens of developing
>countries where widespread access to the Internet -- of any kind --
>remains a distant possibility.
>
>While it is true that some of the earth's most remote places are now
>linked to the Net -- one recent addition is Bhutan, a small kingdom
>in the Himalayas, which inaugurated its first Internet link last
>month -- there are still no connections at all in Iraq, North Korea
>and a handful of African countries. In many countries that have
>Internet connections, Net access is concentrated in the largest
>cities and is prohibitively expensive when set against an
>individual's typical income.
>
>That expense largely restricts the use of the Internet to an elite,
>mostly made up of foreigners, government workers and business people.
>And in some cases, government censors put the Internet out of reach
>for most people in their countries.
>
>The conference here, called INET 99, was the annual meeting of the
>Internet Society, a nonprofit group that coordinates Internet-related
>projects around the world and has the motto "Internet Is for
>Everyone." Each year, the group holds a three-day conference;
>previous locations have included Prague, Montreal, Geneva and Kuala
>Lumpur, Malaysia. This year, 1,600 network administrators, academics
>and business people gathered at the gleaming, cavernous San Jose
>Convention Center in the heart of Silicon Valley. That backdrop
>accentuated the fast-paced, high-risk, moneyed world of high
>technology, a world very far away from the everyday experiences of
>the people attending from developing nations.
>
>Many people at the conference, from places like Japan, Germany,
>Finland and the Netherlands, were sophisticated Internet users,
>concerned with cutting-edge technical issues. But many others were
>from countries where Internet connections are available to only a
>privileged few.
>
>"It created a sort of schizophrenia," said Will Foster, a research
>assistant at the University of Arizona in Tucson who attended the
>conference. "The presentations by Ebay and E*trade highlighted the
>tension between the go-go growth of Internet start-up companies in
>Silicon Valley and the realities of Internet connectivity in
>countries like Cameroon."
>
>Each year, a workshop is held for a week preceding the conference;
>this year, 143 people from 66 developing nations attended. It is
>aimed at sending participants home with additional technical and
>administrative skills for running networks.
>
>Those accepted for the workshop -- 570 people applied -- have basic
>technical skills. "They also have to have leverage within their
>organization, and the organization has to have leverage in the
>country -- for example, someone running networking for the major
>university in the country or within the P.T.T.," said George
>Sadowsky, the Internet Society's vice president for education,
>referring to the shorthand used for many countries' national
>telecommunications providers.
>
>The demographics of the workshop shift each year, as
>telecommunications needs change across the world. The first workshop,
>in 1993, had a large contingent of Eastern Europeans. This year, more
>than half of the participants were from Africa, which accounted for
>about 13 percent of the world's population but just 1 percent of the
>world's Internet users as of the end of March, according to data from
>Mike Jensen, a consultant with the Association for Progressive
>Communications, a nonprofit group based in Johannesburg. Excluding
>South Africa (where 1 in every 177 people uses the Internet), for
>every 4,123 Africans, there is just 1 person who uses the Internet,
>according to Jensen's figures.
>
>Wawa A. Ngenge, the national coordinator for the Sustainable
>Development Networking Program in Cameroon, said his country got its
>first Internet connection in 1997.
>
>Internet service providers there pay the national phone company
>$3,000 per month for a 64-kilobits-per-second line, which is not much
>faster than the fastest dial-up modem; such slow speeds are common in
>developing countries and mean that I.S.P. customers must put up with
>very slow speeds. Just 15,000 people out of 15 million have Internet
>access, all of it concentrated in the capital, Yaounde. Using the
>Internet costs about $3 per hour in Cameroon, a country where the
>average civil servant makes about $200 a month, Dr. Ngenge said.
>One thing slowing the Internet's spread in developing countries is
>the fact that many governments there enjoy a telephone monopoly. Dr.
>Sadowsky said such governments feared that the Internet might reduce
>the revenue from international telephone calls and faxes.
>"Telecommunications rates are extraordinarily high," Dr. Sadowsky
>said. "In the worst case, the P.T.T. provides one-fifth of a
>country's G.N.P. Part of our work is in convincing countries that if
>you ignore the Internet, you'll keep your telephone revenues the
>same, but you'll pay in opportunity cost, in terms of economic and
>social development."
>
>Once the main conference began, those who had attended the workshop
>found little use for the general sessions, many of which focused on
>state-of-the-art wireless communications, E-commerce, venture capital
>and the development of Internet II.
>
>After a panelist at one session mentioned that 40 percent of all
>venture money was invested within a 40-mile radius of where he was
>sitting, a member of the audience asked about the prospects for
>venture capital investments in the developing world. "Remember, we're
>technology investors," the panelist answered politely.
>
>"They're so far away from us," Dr. Ngenge said of conference
>participants from wealthier countries. "We're worrying about two
>different sets of problems."
>
>One prominent set of problems is, of course, political. In Laos, for
>instance, the Communist government considers the Internet a
>destabilizing influence because of the free flow of information
>associated with the Web and keeps connections scarce, said Paula
>Uimonen, a Swedish researcher in Geneva who is studying the Internet
>in Laos and presented a paper at the conference. "It's obvious that
>it's a lack of political willingness," she said.
>
>In some countries, users who can connect to the Internet sometimes
>find that access to certain sites is blocked, according to Human
>Rights Watch. The group said that some Mideast countries, for
>example, blocked access to political sites under the guise of
>protecting users from pornography.
>
>Laos has had e-mail since late 1994, Ms. Uimonen said, and got its
>first I.S.P. last year. There are 1,000 Internet users, most of whom
>are foreigners. There are two cybercafes in the capital, Vientiane,
>but Laotians are not allowed in.
>
>The connection of Myanmar, formerly Burma, to the Internet remains
>similarly tenuous. All modems must be registered with the government,
>which is run by the military, Dr. Sadowsky said. Neither Laos nor
>Myanmar had representatives at the conference.
>
>Immigration policies can make it hard for people to get to the
>conference. Two Cubans were invited to participate in the workshop,
>but one was not given a visa and because of that, the other stayed
>home.
>
>A person from Sudan was registered for the conference and had a visa
>but was detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in New
>York, then sent back to Sudan. A 24-year-old network administrator
>from Hanoi named Tuan Bui Anh arrived in California without incident.
>He said Vietnam got its first Internet connection in late 1997.
>Before that, computer users could send e-mail but could not go out on
>the Web. Net Nam, the main I.S.P., and four other service providers
>have connections concentrated in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
>E-commerce has yet to make an impression in places like Vietnam,
>where few people have credit cards. Following a keynote speech given
>by Meg Whitman, chief executive of the Ebay auction site, Tuan seemed
>a bit bewildered. "I think this is for the Americans only," he said.
>
>
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/07/circuits/articles/08nett.htm
>l