November 3rd, 2008
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Here is a presentation I will use for my guest lecture tomorrow in the Information Technology (IT) in a Changing World course at Georgetown University.
You can download the presentation with notes in a PPTX format, or view it online in a PDF format.
SLIDE 1: Global Digital Divide 2.0: Always Off in an Always On World
We can talk about digital divide in many contexts: between countries and within countries, driven by differences in race, gender, education, income and location. In this presentation, I’ll focus on the global digital divide, or the digital divide between countries, but the same ideas are often applicable to digital divides within countries.
SLIDE 2: Introduction
My views on this topic are colored by my own biases. In terms of education and experience, I’m a marketer. In my present role as the GU-ISD Yahoo! Fellow, I’m a quasi-academic. In terms of inclination, I’m a social media enthusiast and my next avatar may be as a social entrepreneur. A lot of the work I’m doing is at the intersection of technology, culture and development and it is informed by my understanding of emerging markets and emerging technologies.
November 3rd, 2008 |
Posted in Flat or Not, MobiChange, Mobile, Noteworthy, Social Change 2.0, Trendspotting
| Tagged with Digital Divide, Digital Divide 2.0, Innovations, Leapfrogging, Mobile |
October 8th, 2008
(Cross-posted on my fellowship blog - How International Values Shape Communications Technologies)
In a recent post I wrote about the promise and challenges of leapfrogging 2.0 –
If the value of a “social” network (Reed’s Law) is indeed exponentially higher than the value of a telecommunication (Metcalfe’s Law) or a broadcast network (Sarnoff’s Law), there is significant leapfrogging potential available to BRIC countries. A social network (like MobiChange) that mimics the any-to-any nature of Reed’s network on SMS can create tremendous value in the BRIC countries. However, the more I read about leapfrogging the digital divide, the more convinced I am that leapfrogging is much easier in theory than in practice.
Leapfrogging is the idea that poor countries can skip over stages in technology adoption (especially large-scale, industrial, infrastructure-heavy technologies) and directly adopt newer, better technologies (especially light-weight, distributed, ecologically sustainable digital technologies).
The classic example of leapfrogging is the ubiquitous adoption of mobile phones in the developing world.
However, it seems that mobile phone adoption is the only valid example of leapfrogging and the widespread diffusion of most digital technologies is dependent on the existence of a solid social, economic and industrial infrastructure.
October 8th, 2008 |
Posted in Social Change 2.0, Technology
| Tagged with Digital Divide 2.0, Jamais Cascio, Kevin Kelly, Leapfrogging 2.0, Metcalfe's Law, MobiChange, Mobile Phones, Reed's Law, Sarnoff's Law, The Economist, The Technium, World Bank, WorldChanging |
