Do you have any personal experience with digital divide (that you would like to share)?

I am a minority and so most of my life bas been about crossing a societal divide, the educational divide. The digital divide in the United States was at first about access, and then knowledge. I was able to cross the digital divide with the help of NASA, National Geographic, Earthwatch,  the National Science Teachers Association and other teaching groups. I love games in education and was helped by people at MIT in the media lab.

I would take summer workshops and attend conferences to get the knowledge I needed. The National Geographic gave ,me an outstanding training in media and geography, GIS and the understanding of culture.

As a result of my work and advocacy of technology I was made a Christa McAuliffe (1948-1986) Educator. You may not remember but she was the astronaut who was killed in a shuttle accident. We celebrated her memory by teaching technology to teachers as she would have from space but we did it in outreach for the NFIE.

The NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education inspires public education employees to ensure that all students succeed. As the foundation of the National Education Association, they  believe that:

• public education excellence is vital for our democracy and should be attainable for all;
• education employees determine the quality of public education;
• students should actively pursue their education;
• education employees should embrace diversity and act accordingly;
• effective education employees should continually learn, apply their knowledge, share their expertise, and lead their profession; and
• education employees should partner with their peers, researchers,  
• policymakers, and communities to make public schools great for every child.

We worked and demonstrated to show that teachers of diversity can effectively use technology.

I was a Challenger Fellow. It seemed the most important part of my life in that we taught about space science, education, science and technology. NASA invested time for educators to learn science, technology, math and engineering. I even piloted a small plane and learned to glide.

Later, I was able to work with President Clinton, Vice President Gore and Ron Brown in crafting with the NIIAC, National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council, the US perspective on the use of technology in America .  Then the personal experience was in criss-crossing the country, telling the story of technology in education. I travelled the whole country and then other places. I have worked in digital divide places , in many places in the world.  In the US we had the Tech Corps and CyberEd.

My first use of technology, was to help a child who had difficulty writing. He and I explored the internet together and I saw the transformational power of the  use of technology as a tool for communication, expression, inquiry and as media. Somehow you have to make technology up close and personal for people to love it.

There is an inventor dilemma in the IT industry: whether to produce expensive business computers for the elite or to produce inexpensive computers for the low income public. What is your opinion on this dilemma?

There will need to be both. There are many things we can do with computers. Buying a computer is an investment and a challenge, no matter which computer you have, there is another one that is better, faster, with more things and applications coming. I believe that the inexpensive computer is important to get people started. If you think of cars, we have many ways of travelling with cars and motor vehicles. You can get started with a simple one and it may be all you need, but the Information Superhighway requires some methodology for understanding, for connectivity and communication. Some  people will start with interesting handheld devices, which in fact have more power than the first computer that many of us used .. Business computers have special applications but there are other ways in which the public can use the Internet . In Tunisia , there is El Dinar, a way to spend money over the Internet for the general public. There are other international tools that facilitate, that help the general public.

Do you think we have made enough effort to bridge the digital divide? Do you think the digital divide would widen or lessen in the future? Why?

I think there will always be catching up in technology because the digital divide is a lot of things and is an intersection of infrastructure, information, application and the understanding of the ways in which it can be used. It does require time invested in training, understanding and making sense of the possibilities.

Many  people are unaware of the difficulty that poor people all over the world have in creating connectivity, getting training and maintaining their computers.  Women hold up half the sky in the world, but in the field of technology we see mostly men. Therefore lots of programs and projects are not easy to use. Sometimes the guy factor, is that the project is just hard to do. We , some of us do it in spite of that, but many women who could be instrumental in the adoption of technology are turned off because there are so many hurdles to technology use.

All of us, however will always be running to catch up with technology, I am a student of the National Center for Super Computer Applications and there are technologies that I have been using, or have seen that are much beyond what we are thinking about and talking about. There are applications in grid computing that are outstanding. And there is teragrid computing coming.

It will be truly global the 'next big thing' beyond the Internet."

The project will create a "distributed supercomputer" with processors all over the country, and eventually the world, linked by extremely high-speed connections that will allow huge amounts of information to be shared easily by scientists and researchers in widely separated locations.

The applications of the system are research areas that require collection, processing and analysis of vast amounts of data by researchers in different locations and in different disciplines.

But for now there is Internet 2. There is a vast difference between what we use now and Internet 2.

There are also some applications in technology that are outstanding. visualization and modeling as in Bugscope, and Chemsense, and Chemvis, and Chickscope. And data mining. I love some of the applications that are the geowall,

You have to show a picture of the Cave

What is the CAVE?
The CAVE is an immersive virtual reality facility designed for the exploration of and interaction with spatially engaging environments. It was also an integral part of the research activities of the NCSA Visualization and Virtual Environments Group until its decommissioning at the end of 2005. The CAVE's true stereoscopic capabilities, coupled with its uniquely immersive design, enable scientists and researchers to interact with their data in ways never before possible. An atmospheric scientist, for example, can actually "climb inside" of a hurricane and visualize its complex and chaotic elements from any angle or visual perspective.

Do you know any organizations that make effort to bridge the digital divide?

The United Nations Task Force worked for developing countries. They had a series of meetings with individuals from various nations to create interest, understanding and information. There have been a series of books that are the outcome of this project. I was fortunate enough to be able to edit one of them.
http://www.unicttaskforce.org/

The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF.org) in the United States, has been a force for change. You probably know about Star Wars. We attempted to create understanding and information to take teachers, communities and educators into the future with all the power that knowledge can bring. If you go to the web site you can see movies about ways to use technology in education.

I work with a group in the Mediterranean, called the Agora. We exchange ideas and projects and work in media. We participate in the World Summits for Children and Media. The next is being held in South Africa in 2007.

We work in Europe. And then there is the Digital Divide Network

Internet access in low-income or marginal areas is a problem partly because the unavailability of broadband and telephone line. Do you think wireless technology can provide a solution to this problem in those areas?

I will attach a project that is from the Association of Public Technology, from a speaker who addressed the problems in the US and who collaborates with cities all over the world. Different countries have a different way of looking at this problem. Britain is creating several cities with wireless to experiment and see what they can learn from the project. An old time movie star, Hedy LaMarr came up with some of the ideas for this believe it or not.

Language difference also contribute to DD - but it is of interest for IT companies to make their products available to more consumers. Has there been any significant effort made to make the Internet and software in general more international? Do you think such effort can help bridging DD?

Working internationally will require more languages.  It is imperative to include more languages and sites with multilingual capacity even within countries. I lived in India for a time and there are many languages and Indian Schoolnet translates into the languages of the various states. Also Wendy Pye, of New Zealand has become a person of interest in literacy because she uses the language of the country to teach literacy in stunning programs that work.

One of the highlights of my work was to learn with her. She introduced me to international work and the thinking that is required, for real change.

She is now one of the world's largest producers of children's literacy material. Her multimedia titles - including books, television and the internet - are now sold in 21 countries through eight offices worldwide.

She has pioneered the development of an early literacy programme and learning technologies, in particular in the United States, and works with many educational institutes and universities worldwide to develop strategies for literacy through research.

There have to be business people with a perspective , knowledge and  real understanding of the issues.

There are some small business sites that emulate the kind of work she does internationally. See www.literacycenter.net .  I also like the inidivdual books that are used to teach reading that are interactive. You can do so much with this kind of reading project.

What do you think can be the (most effective) solutions for DD?

The various countries have cultures and have to create a welcoming infrastructure as well as invest in traning, technology, teaching and support for communities. I like the Telecenter projects and the community technology centers for  dissemination to citizens. For the US we wrote this click here.

There are ideas there that just have to be translated and updated , and changed to meet the variables of the technology landscape in individual countries. We know that there are governments that will also take the reins and create technology opportunities , as in Japan and in Singapore .

In some developing countries, a response to the inability to afford software is using pirate software. Do you think pirate software can lessen the digital divide? Do you think free software (such as the GNU project) would play a role in bridging DD?

There are so many free ways to take care of the software problem. That is an essay unto itself. Try reading about Ubuntu.. and the educational programs that go with it.

I had some very interesting conversations about copyright and copyleft with individuals iin the UN Task Force.  I tend to agree with Laurence Lessig. I saw him and was exposed to his ideas at a conference called Poptech in Maine
This is one of his publications.

Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig
How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity