Should ICT be always associated with Information Society?

Information Society: Voices from the South

Summary of discussions on the topic
Knowledge Societies

Prepared by Partha Pratim Sarker
Co-editor, Bytes for All
& Moderator, Information Society Discussion Forum

Main theme line of discussion

Information Society: What does it mean for the South?

Sub-topics:

(1.A.) Should ICT be always associated with Information Society?
(1.B.) Information society for grassroots development: Who takes the most important role (of the information intermediaries)? Government? Private sector? NGOs? Community cooperatives? Individuals? Who and why??? What could be the possible roadmap?
(1.C.) Indigenous knowledge and information for local needs: How to collect, process and deliver that?

The contributors also discussed the issue of whether ICT needs to be always associated with Information Society or not. The idea was to get an overview of the role that ICT can play in developing a true and participatory model of Information Society in the South.

Many users thought that ‘Information Society’ is not solely about ICTs but it takes a prominence as ICT is thought to be a subversive medium that can be used rather inexpensively and without the support of a gatekeeper, as long as the solutions are being developed in multi-lingual, open ended and community owned perspective. But establishing this relationship between ICTs and Information Society was grounded on three directional thinking. Many had been extremely optimistic about the use and successes of ICTs in development purposes. Some were cautiously optimistic- with successful role of other units (such as, Intermediaries, Policy Makers etc.) and emphasized on other developments side by side. And a few others seemed to be overtly doubtful and considered the inclusion of ICTs as perhaps a waste of resources.

Atunu Garai believed that ‘ICT is just a means to solve some pressing human problems of this time: poverty, AIDS, hunger, draught, and disaster to name a few’. Margaret Grieco, John Chacko, Pamela McLean seemed to be very hopeful with the enabling role of ICTs. John mentioned about cellular phones at the hands of Kerala fishermen who can now directly negotiate prices with the market. Margaret expresses more specific attention to handheld, solar-powered, satellite-linked technologies that ‘can provide rural farmers with information on agricultural prices, summon emergency medical help and transport, play a key role in education and are used by the bushmen of the Kalahari as an environmental management tool’. Pamela McLean provided an example of OOCD 2000+ for creating such a society for Oke-Ogun in Nigeria.

Krishna Alluri set the example of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) that is now looking at ‘ICT and ODL (Open and Distant Learning) as means to address some of the important Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In that context, 'teachers' as a group of 'change makers' come to the forefront’.

But there is a systematic pattern for ICTs and Information to be useful in the context of developing countries. Ajit Maru showed a clear path. ‘ICT is a tool for not only providing information but for communication. For information to be useful in the context of a community, it should lead to learning both by the individuals and collectively by the community. From this learning, a new vision for development and progress and the capacity to negotiate emerges. Negotiations about action to fulfill desired visions follow once the community is empowered to use information. Unfortunately in the past few years, the world has looked at ICT rather than information as an input for development and therefore we have information kiosks and tele-centers standing forlorn and without use ranging from rural Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. We should, for the South, look at the Information Society, whatever it co notates, as a means for empowerment and not a symbol of modernity’.

Frederick Noronha from Bytes for All, India, raised questions to the pre-occupations that we had been holding while discussing the issue. He asked ‘Should we assume ICT = Computers? Isn't a village loudspeaker or blackboard displaying notices in public places, or even an inexpensive newspaper put out for reading in a public place a case of ICT? Can't all these help make society better informed’?

Yacoov Illand viewed the Information Society as a society where all people can easily produce and access public information. He thought that ‘this definition is only attainable through ICT, and currently only through the Internet. The telephone system, cellular or otherwise, does not yet allow its users to produce public information. I think that this linking of the Internet and the Information Society is warranted, given that the Internet was what sparked widespread awareness of and interest in the idea of an Information Society’.

Given this scope of Internet technologies he also thought that ICT is not cheaper till to date and doesn’t solve any common and immediate problems of the poorer communities. He particularly brought the example of Kenya (where he is from) to illustrate his points of adopting technologies in various cases (starting from plastic container to refrigerators, from computers to cell phones). One important example to Information Society has been the development of Open Source Software (OSS) ‘that has occurred organically, i.e. without an organization or program to kick-start it. Basically, the infrastructure was built, people started using it for a variety of reasons, and they needed good, cheap software. Someone made some such software for personal use and as an after though made it public. They came in droves’.

Chris Zielinski made an interesting observation on the relationship between ICTs and Information Society. He said ‘ICTs will only be considered useful when there is an immediate felt need for information/knowledge’.

In dealing with the term for information society, Alfonso Molina from The University of Edinburgh wrote, ‘ICTs are powerful and pervasive enablers for societal development; and their control reproduces or gives huge power to those who exercise this control… Fortunately with all its limitations ICTs are also an enabler for increasing, connecting, and above all bringing together "people with warm hearts and hard heads" into grassroot projects and joint learning and working processes focused on the elimination of poverty and exclusion in the Information Society. This means that today more than any other time in the past the opportunity, exist to start a process that counteract the huge fragmentation and lack of knowledge, learning and support for each others' e-inclusion efforts’.

Shahid Uddian Akbar from ICT Development Program in Bangladesh thought ICT to be a major player in Information Society organizing, but was also open to some sorts of synergy in information management issues. He said ‘there might have some other alternate modules for sharing information and knowledge, which are the key components of Information Society. The traditional Library system can also play an important role for Information Society. Strengthening these libraries with ICT facilities may contribute further acceleration of IS expansion. It is also obvious that to establish real time IS, ICT has to be associated’.

Steve Cisler from USA actually stood up more clearly on the merging of old and new, cheaper and sophisticated technologies in making the solutions available to the remote places. He actually drew reference of his own experiences. ‘After evaluating a project in Uganda called Connect-ED, and because of my years of working in libraries, I think we have to link the sophisticated and expensive systems to more traditional ways of delivering the answers that people are requesting. That means printed material, radio, television, phone, video, and of course oral means. Many of these are controlled by state or remote corporate interests, but in each case there are technologies that lower the cost and open up some parts of the medium to the public. Some regulations are making it easier to participate, but others are cutting off accesses’.

Anand from Servelots Infotech in Bangalore, India, expressed the view that ‘ICTs have to go beyond sharing and dissemination. ICTs have to be about authoring content as well as sharing and dissemination’. He also tried to identify the barriers that rest to the adoption of technologies. To him the barriers are:

1. Access to information architecture tools
2. To cost of developing an ICT solution (software developers are expensive)
3. Localization (making tools available in local languages)
4. The cost of being able to scale and replicate a successful IS model that uses ICTs.
5. ICT developers need not necessarily understand the needs of the Information Society and experts who manage the information need not necessarily understand IT. There is a gap here that leads to miscommunication that inevitably leads to failed projects.

Alex Weir, a freelance software developer in Zimbabwe, brought forward some examples of cheaper and available ICT solutions for Information Society in the South. Particularly, he mentioned about the World Space free digital satellite technology , low power FM radio, PC machine translation and large body of information on small-farmer technology, village technology, agricultural practices, food processing, small industries etc. which is available through organisations such as Volunteers in Technical Assistance, Intermediate Technology Development Group, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU, Natural Resources Institute, Skat Foundation, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit etc.

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Information Society: Voices from the South is an online discussion forum run by Digital Opportunity Channel in partnership with Bytes for All. The forum will run until December 2003 and will discuss a number of broad themes related to the emerging information society and the process of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).