{"id":316,"date":"2010-06-17T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2010-06-17T10:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rigf.asia\/?page_id=316"},"modified":"2024-01-25T06:49:59","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T06:49:59","slug":"aprigf-roundtable-june-15th-2010-session-4","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/event.rigf.asia\/2010\/aprigf-roundtable-june-15th-2010-session-4\/","title":{"rendered":"APrIGF Roundtable – June 15th, 2010: Session 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Access: The Digital Divide in Asia”<\/span>
\n________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

REAL TIME TRANSCRIPT: Access: The Digital Divide in Asia
\nAPrIGF
\n16:00-17:30, Tuesday 15 June 2010
\nHong Kong<\/p>\n

DISCLAIMER: Due to the inherent difficulties in capturing a live
\nspeaker’s words, it is possible this realtime transcript may
\ncontain errors and mistranslations. An edited version of the
\nrealtime transcript which amends the inherent errors, will
\nbe posted later. LLOYD MICHAUX and APrIGF accept no
\nliability for any event or action resulting from the
\ncontents of this transcript.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

>> :\u00a0 This session is about digital divide in Asia.<\/p>\n

May I now invade Mr Edmon Chung,\u00a0 Chief Executive
\nOfficer of DotAsia Organisation, to start the session
\nand introduce the panel speakers for us.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

As was mentioned, this session will talk about
\naccess and delve more into the things that the community
\nand the governments are doing about addressing the
\ndigital divide in the region.<\/p>\n

Just now, in the session, I was reminded by some
\ncolleagues that in the IGF, we should really have a more
\nbalanced discussion to include the governments.<\/p>\n

I’m glad to say that we have a few of the government
\nrepresentatives on my panel, from governments from
\nHong Kong, from Malaysia, from Singapore and then also
\nfrom NGO, from ISOC from Hong Kong councils social
\nservices and then business representatives, as well as
\nacademia.<\/p>\n

I’m quite proud of my very full panel today, with
\na multi-stakeholder approach.<\/p>\n

Instead of going through everyone, introducing,
\nwe’ll jump right into it and let us begin with Tony,
\ngive us a presentation on the situation in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

>> Tony Wong:\u00a0 Thank you, Edmon.<\/p>\n

Good afternoon even and good to be the first speaker
\nafter coffee break, so I hope the coffee will keep you
\nawake for at least 10 minutes, to help my finish my
\npresentation.<\/p>\n

As Edmon mentioned, I’m coming from the Hong Kong
\nGovernment.\u00a0 My office mainly deals with a couple of
\nthings, one important aspect of my office work is on the
\ndigital inclusion area, so I’m the head of the digital
\ninclusion division of my office and today I would like
\nto take some time to introduce some latest initiatives
\nin Hong Kong in these areas.<\/p>\n

To start with, I would like to give you a little bit
\nbackground about the work focus of Hong Kong in terms of
\ndigital inclusion in recent years.<\/p>\n

I will start with one of the five key action areas
\nin the 2008 Digital 21 Strategy, which is Hong Kong’s IP
\ngrouping, mentioning about we want to build Hong Kong
\ninto an inclusive knowledge based society.<\/p>\n

This being one of the five key action areas, among
\nother things, we have been doing this by means of
\ngetting input from different stakeholders in the
\ncommunity to give us advice and input on how can we take
\nforward these action areas.<\/p>\n

Our office has established a digital inclusion task
\nforce with representatives from both within and outside
\nthe government and with their input and advice, our key
\nfocus in recent years, in terms of digital inclusion, is
\nto bring the benefits of ICT to in particular the
\nunderprivileged groups of the community.<\/p>\n

In terms of underprivileged groups, we understand
\nthat different groups also have their different
\npriorities and also different needs.<\/p>\n

Meeting their needs, need resource and from
\ngovernment and community.\u00a0 So the task force also give
\nus advice on some of the current prior to groups that we
\nneed to focus on in recent years.<\/p>\n

Elderly people with disabilities and children of low
\nincome families are the three major priorities at the
\nmoment.<\/p>\n

Along these priorities and divided by the task force
\nand our stakeholders, we have been initiating a number
\nof initiatives, both within the government and also in
\npartnership with our NGO sectors, in helping to solve
\nthe digital divide among these three priority groups.<\/p>\n

Today I would like to highlight one of the key
\ninitiatives targeting children of low income families,
\nwhich is an internet learning initiatives for students
\nin need.<\/p>\n

The background or the drive for having this
\ninitiative, it’s very simple.<\/p>\n

We understand that children are our future,
\neducation is one of the very important means to help
\nbridging not only the digital divide, in fact, it’s the
\ngap, the social divide between the have and have not.<\/p>\n

We start with the idea of internet and electronic
\ntools being increasingly used in all sorts of learning
\nactivities, both within the schools and also outside the
\nschools.<\/p>\n

So our Chief Executive in October last year, in his
\npolicy address, made a commitment of saying that we need
\nto provide convenient and suitable internet learning
\nopportunities for all the students in need through
\na tripartite collaboration between the communities, the
\nbusiness sector and the government, because in
\nHong Kong, the Hong Kong Government is always having the
\nbelief that we need collaboration, not only within the
\ngovernment, but also with our business sector and the
\ncommunities at large, in order to deal with those
\ncommunities problems or issues.<\/p>\n

We start with a very in depth survey and study on
\nwhat is the internet learning needs or issues or areas
\namong those childrens in need or those low income
\nfamilies.<\/p>\n

Our survey reveal that it is in fact Hong Kong is
\nnot really that bad in terms of internet access.<\/p>\n

Even within the low income families, with children,
\nwe have more than — we have about 87 per cent of these
\nfamily already have internet access at home.<\/p>\n

As compared to only about 30 per cent of those low
\nincome families without children.<\/p>\n

That gives us a very key indicator on one hand is
\nthat we have a very difficult problem here, because the
\nlast mile or the last 10 per cent or so is the most
\ndifficult problem that we need to bridge.<\/p>\n

At the same time, we understand that the key driver
\nfor parents or for those families to getting their
\nfamily on-line is because of their children.<\/p>\n

Education is the primary motive for these families
\nto get on line, through our survey we find that.<\/p>\n

At the same time, we also ask those which it’s quite
\ndifficult to get those not getting on-line, but through
\nthis survey, we get all of these families and then we
\nask them what is the problem or what is the concern of
\nnot getting on-line?<\/p>\n

Cost, of course, is one of the considerations, but
\nof course as compared to the 87 per cent of those with
\nthe same income level, which is yet they are low income
\nfamily, but 87 per cent have their children or have
\ntheir families connected to internet.<\/p>\n

So we think that cost is only one of the issues.<\/p>\n

Probably because of the value of the other side of
\nthe equation is the concern, is more of the concern of
\nwhether the parents understand the value of getting
\non-line.<\/p>\n

Of course, the reason they give us is that the
\npossible downside of having their children access to the
\ninternet, all the securities issues that in the morning
\nwe talked about, the virus, the internet addiction and
\nthings like that.<\/p>\n

Also, the lack of knowledge of the parents in terms
\nof the values of the internet and the usage of internet
\nand also the lack of technical support.<\/p>\n

Because within this about 124 to 13 per cent not
\ngetting on line at the moment, in fact, in the past
\nthree years, they have once had their computer access to
\nthe internet.<\/p>\n

But after their computer broke down, they either
\ndon’t have the money or don’t have the knowledge to fix
\nthat computer, so they end up having their computer
\ngetting off line.<\/p>\n

Technical support is another issue that we need to
\naddress.<\/p>\n

We try to think of a holistic approach in terms of
\nhow to help these needy students.<\/p>\n

In February this year, our financial — we have
\nsuccessfully convened our Financial Secretary to include
\nthese major initiative in his budget speech and of
\ncourse, when we talk about his budget speech, that means
\nhe committed to have some money to put into this
\ninitiative.<\/p>\n

What we think of is a two prong approach to support
\nthese families.\u00a0 On one hand, we give them direct cash
\nsubsidies and on the other hand, we want to develop
\na five year facilitation programme and 500 million was
\nearmarked as a start-up capital for these two measures.<\/p>\n

I will elaborate a little more on how the money is
\nused and what’s the details about this two prong
\napproach.<\/p>\n

In terms of cash subsidy, which is quite simple and
\ndirect, because the family getting — this is low income
\nfamilies, they are competing with all sorts of daily
\nhousehold needs, in terms of both the family and
\nchildren needs.<\/p>\n

Starting from this school year, the government is
\ncommitted to give direct cash subsidies to family with
\nschool childrens, primary and secondary school
\nchildrens, in order to reduce directly their financial
\nburdens in getting their children on line for learning
\nat home.<\/p>\n

The subsidies this year was set to 1,300 each year,
\nwhich is coming from he our latest market research.<\/p>\n

Of course, each year we will be reviewing the latest
\nmarket price of internet access and we will adjust the
\nsubsidies accordingly (1,300.<\/p>\n

The five-year facilitation programme, basically is
\nto help addressing the other concern or other issues of
\nthe families.<\/p>\n

First, we hope that by means of some minimum
\nintervention into the internet service provider market,
\nwe hope that a more economical and affordable internet
\naccess service could be made available to these target
\nfamilies, plus some suitable computer hardware and
\nsoftware for these students to gain access to internet
\nfor learning, for learning at home.<\/p>\n

Also, we hope that this programme will be able to
\nprovide tailor-made education and technical support to
\nthe students and their parents on both the basic
\ntechnical issues and also more importantly, the safe and
\nhealthy use of the internet.<\/p>\n

Again, as I mention, we want to implement this
\ninitiative as also with many of other digital inclusion
\ninstitute, with a tripartite collaborations with the
\ncommercial and also the community sectors.<\/p>\n

We target to implement this facilitation programme
\nthrough a non-profit making organisation, with funding
\nsupport from the government, based on an agreed and
\nannual reviewed business plan.<\/p>\n

Now in fact we are at the moment of openly inviting
\nproposal from the whole community and those interested
\norganisation to give us proposal and give us suggestion
\non how this facilitation programme could be implemented.<\/p>\n

This is the screen cap of our request proposal
\nwebsite, which is in our office website.\u00a0 It’s quite
\neasy.\u00a0 You can remember the office website at
\nwww.OGCIO.GOV.HK and then you can go through the tender
\nnotice, expression of interest and sponsorship session.
\nIf you’re interested to have a look at this document,
\nyou are welcome to get it.<\/p>\n

Also, we have a Facebook page to facilitate
\ndiscussions and also exchange of views and questions on
\nthis exercise.\u00a0 The website is a bit long, but it is
\nquite easy for you to go on to Facebook and search for
\nRFP for internet learning support programme and probably
\nyou will be able to get this.<\/p>\n

I welcome all your views and input on this
\ninitiative.<\/p>\n

The benefit, I will talk a little bit about why we
\nwant to engage a non-profit making organisation to do
\nthat.<\/p>\n

First of all, as I mentioned, we want to have
\na minimum intervention to the internet access and
\ncomputer supply market, with a targeted group in mind,
\nwhich is the low income families with children.<\/p>\n

We want this to be operated as a business entity
\nwith maximum flexibility.<\/p>\n

I don’t need to emphasise as a government, it’s the
\nlast flexible entity in the world.<\/p>\n

So if the government is going to do that, probably
\nthe only way we can do that is do bulk tenders or do an
\nopen tender and get what we regard as all the major
\nvendors will come up with their proposals and probably
\nwill not be the most cost effective way of using the
\ngovernment funding.<\/p>\n

Of course, having a non-profit making organisation
\nwill have the ability to engage private sponsorships and
\nalso professional support to strengthen the ability of
\nthe programmes in delivering the policy objectives.<\/p>\n

Also, the NGO probably is more knowledgeable and
\nunderstanding on the needs of the target groups, which
\nis the families and which is their clients, in terms of
\ntheir service.<\/p>\n

We also need the business view from the commercial
\nsectors, in terms of developing those low cost,
\naffordable internet access service and also the
\naffordable and suitable computer hardware and software
\nfor learning needs of the children.<\/p>\n

Of course, if it is operated as a business entity,
\nthey have the ability and flexibilities to work with
\nportfolios of ISPs and also IT suppliers, in order to
\ndevelop the best products and services for the groups.<\/p>\n

Also, NGO will be able to leverage the partnership
\nnetwork with the community organisation in delivering
\nthe service, penetrating through the communities in
\nreaching these low income families, these targeted
\nfamilies and children.<\/p>\n

In terms of the target beneficiaries, our analysis
\nshowing that it’s currently in Hong Kong is about
\n300,000 families, what we classify as low income family,
\nwhich either is receiving, eligible for receiving
\ncomprehensive social security assistance schemes or from
\nour student finance assistance agency, they also got the
\nfinancial assistance scheme under this agency to support
\nthe school related financial assistance to those low
\nincome families.<\/p>\n

It’s around currently, slightly over 400,000, that
\nkind of students, from 300,000 families in current
\nschool year.<\/p>\n

We estimate an additional about 112,000 students
\nfrom 82,000 families in the following four years.<\/p>\n

When we say the five-year facilitation programmes,
\nin fact, we are having the sustainabilities in mind.\u00a0 We
\nhope that this nonprofit making organisations working
\nlike a business entity would be able to deliver or
\ndevelop a sustainable model of operations in the
\nfive-year periods.<\/p>\n

But, of course, we understand that the internet and
\nthe technologies and even the learning environment or
\neducation environment has been changing very rapidly and
\nno one knows even in the coming, the next two or three
\nyears, what kind of internet access or computer
\nequipment will be needed for the students in terms of
\ntheir learning.<\/p>\n

We sort of planning for a five-year programme and
\nthen we have a mid-term review and then during our
\nmid-term review, we will be able to plan the way forward
\nbeyond these five years.<\/p>\n

I am happy to report that in last month, when we go
\nto our Legislative Council, finance committees, to seek
\nfor this funding support, we have the sort of
\nhundred per cent support.<\/p>\n

I don’t remember there’s any government policy that
\ncan be able to get all our politics full support in
\nterms of going through the Legislative Council.<\/p>\n

Those colleagues never forget to add a remark saying
\nthat our parties have been fighting for years and
\nconvincing the government is listening to us in terms of
\nadd ing these terms to their portfolios.<\/p>\n

In terms of the distribution of the moneys or the
\n500 million commitment, we estimate based on our direct
\ncash subsidies to the families, we estimate about
\n280 million this year will be distributed through our
\ncash subsidies directly to the families.<\/p>\n

Another 220 million will be the seed money for the
\nimplementation of this five-year facilitation programme.<\/p>\n

Also, I want to add that one some of the comments we
\nreceive during our consultation period is saying why not
\ngiving — why don’t you give the service free of charge
\nto the families directly, instead of giving the cash to
\nthem, but without any accountability, they probably can
\nuse the moneys for other purpose instead of giving the
\ninternet access to their students.<\/p>\n

But when we decided this two prong approach, we
\ntried to think of a balance between the freedom of
\nchoice of the families because on one hand we understand
\nthat close to 90 per cent of these families already, one
\nway or the other, getting their service from the market.<\/p>\n

If we are going to give free service to them, but at
\nthe same time, removing the choice of them from picking
\nwhatever service they like in the market, that way,
\nprobably the family may not be very welcome about this
\nkind of schemes.<\/p>\n

At the same time, we hope that through this
\nfacilitation programmes and also by means of developing
\na new stream of business by this nonprofit making
\norganisation, we will be able to shape a little bit
\nabout the market and give more choice to the families in
\nterms of picking the right service and the right
\nequipment for their children, with the amount of money
\nthat they got from the direct cash subsidies part.<\/p>\n

In terms of rollout schedule, the direct cash
\nsubsidy with the funding support from the Legislative
\nCouncil, our education bureau colleagues will be able to
\nissue the subsidies right away from starting from this
\nschool year.<\/p>\n

By late August 2010 onwards, every year, eligible
\nfamilies will receive cash subsidies directly through
\nthe various financial schemes from the government.<\/p>\n

Then for the facilitation programmes, now we are
\ninviting proposal from interested organisation, business
\npartners and communities to give us proposals and
\nbusiness plan on how to develop this five-year
\nprogrammes.<\/p>\n

We hope to conclude the funding and operation
\nagreement by end of this year or before with our
\nselected organisations or selected partners and then as
\nsoon as possible, to roll out the service by early next
\nyear.<\/p>\n

If not, no later than the beginning of 2011 school
\nyear.<\/p>\n

This will match with the annual cash subsidy part of
\nthe schemes, in terms of providing additional options
\nand additional choice for the families, starting next
\nyear.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned, we will be conducting annual review
\nand form business plan with these organisations and also
\na major mid-term review, probably two and a half to
\nthree years of the programme, to review their
\neffectiveness and also in terms of the latest — taking
\ninto account the latest technological development and
\neducation needs or learning needs of the students, in
\norder to design the way forward of this programme beyond
\nthe five years.<\/p>\n

If I may, I also like to introduce some of the key
\ninitiatives that we target to the other major
\nunderprivileged group identified by our digital
\ninclusion task force.<\/p>\n

One is the digital cyber centre that we partner with
\nNGOs across the 18 districts of Hong Kong, to help them
\noperating their computer centre more effectively, in
\nterms of delivering support on ICD training and internet
\naccess to the different groups in the districts.<\/p>\n

If you are interested, you can go and access to
\ntheir website to learn more about the schemes.<\/p>\n

The Be Net Wise Campaign that Ken Ngai for the
\nFederation of Youth Groups talk about in the earlier
\nsession, which is the one-year education programme
\ntargeting to promote the safe and healthy use of
\ninternet among young students and their parents and
\nteachers.\u00a0 This is the website of the campaign.<\/p>\n

Last but not least, we have just launched I think,
\njust last Sunday, a new initiative with partnership with
\nanother elderly organisation, targeting to provide an
\nelderly friendly, easy to use, one stop entry portal for
\nthe elderly to encourage elders to integrate into
\nsociety and also lead an active and healthy life and
\nalso two help them eliminate intergenerational digital
\ndivides.<\/p>\n

If you are interested, I also invite you to take
\na look and also give suggestions and input on how to
\nshape this website, to better serve the elderly
\ncommunity of Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

With that, I complete my introductions.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you, Tony, for a very comprehensive
\noverview of the stuff that is happening in Hong Kong<\/p>\n

from the government and the Hong Kong’s five-year plan
\nfor our digital divide, addressing, especially with
\nstudents.<\/p>\n

Next up would be Dato Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi, as we
\nget his slides up.<\/p>\n

Sharil will be wearing two hats today for us.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, they were unable to join us.\u00a0 I don’t
\nthink anyone from ITU was able to join us — that slip
\nwas not a very good one.\u00a0 They were willing, they were
\njust unable to come at this particular time.\u00a0 Sharil
\nwill be shadowing and also from the Malaysian government
\nstandpoint as well.<\/p>\n

>> Dato Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi:\u00a0 Thanks, Edmon.<\/p>\n

This is a bit of a challenge.\u00a0 I got the slides
\nliterally 24 hours ago and I found I had 76 slides to
\npresent from the ITU.<\/p>\n

But I won’t bore you to death.<\/p>\n

Other than to declare, right now, I’m speaking as on
\nbehalf of Dr Unju Kim, who unfortunate is at
\na ministerial meeting in south Pacific, somewhere in the
\nPacific islands, but she would like very much for us to
\nshare with you what ITU is doing, particularly the
\nsector office here in Asian Pacific, in Asia.<\/p>\n

Very quickly, everyone I guess around the room knows
\nwho ITU is.\u00a0 They are the telecoms body under the UN
\nsystem.\u00a0 They have four regional offices, seven area
\noffices, the office here for this region is actually in
\nBangkok.<\/p>\n

They have a secondary office in Jakarta.<\/p>\n

They have four sectors, which is the development
\nsector, radio, standardisation and then the Secretary
\nGeneral’s Office.<\/p>\n

In terms of access, ITU looks at access largely from
\nan infrastructure level.<\/p>\n

Many of you here who are internet practitioners or
\nengineers don’t look at the base infrastructure level,
\nbecause someone else has taken care of it and that
\nlargely is where ITU plays its role.<\/p>\n

I’m going to, in the interests of time, move along
\nthe slides and use them where I can.<\/p>\n

They recognise, for example, that the broadband
\npenetration or subscription globally has actually been
\nincreasing tremendously, which is why more and more of
\nthe ITU’s work is moving into broadband as opposed to
\nbasic telecommunications.<\/p>\n

We can see from this chart, telephone mobile
\nsubscription has been the one that’s picked up the
\nhighest, whereas fixed line is declining, but with the
\nmobile subscriptions increasing, broadband subscription
\nis also picking up at the same time.<\/p>\n

I think this is a trend many other developing
\ncountries in the region will also show.<\/p>\n

They are doing some studies on comparing prices,
\nbecause affordability is a challenge.<\/p>\n

They themselves are not able to do anything about
\nthis, because they are just a coordinating body in this
\nregard.<\/p>\n

Ignore the skype.<\/p>\n

But information such as this is useful for
\ngovernments to actually then put in the right policies
\nto try and help competition pro live rate, so that
\nprices will come down.<\/p>\n

As you can see, they have been doing a couple of
\nstudies where in some developing countries, particularly
\nin Africa and some developing countries in this region,
\naccess to broadband or access to the internet is still
\nvery, very expensive.<\/p>\n

I think if I can use this point here to illustrate
\nthis point, it’s nice to talk about what we want to do.
\nIt’s nice to talk like in the morning just now about
\nbotnets and all sorts of security issues.\u00a0 The basic
\npoint here in this region is if you don’t have the basic
\ninfrastructure, you can’t put any applications on board.<\/p>\n

If you don’t have electricity, for example, you
\ncan’t power your Outlook.<\/p>\n

I know someone from the back will start yelling, no,
\nwe have gensets.<\/p>\n

Moving on, ITU Asian Pacific office covers these
\ncountries, so if you don’t know, I suggest you also
\ncheck with your representatives back home which ministry
\nor which agency works with the ITU.<\/p>\n

They categorise these countries into LDCs, SIDS, low
\nincome developing states and the rest.<\/p>\n

Many of us at this table, I guess, is in the rest
\ncategory.\u00a0 Does that mean we are resting or we are just
\nmoving ahead?<\/p>\n

They serve 37 member states in this region.<\/p>\n

They have sector members.\u00a0 I won’t bore you with the
\nslides.<\/p>\n

But this is something useful to note.<\/p>\n

They have a couple of developmental programmes where
\nas developing countries, we should take notice of.<\/p>\n

The programmes are essentially in regulatory reform,
\nwhich is very important.\u00a0 We spoke about earlier having
\nthe right framework to allow industry to flourish.<\/p>\n

ICT development, E strategies, economics, finance,
\nhuman capacity building and special programmes for LDCs.<\/p>\n

Then they have very special initiatives, you can see
\nat the bottom left-hand at the slide, which is targeted
\nat gender, programme, special programmes for children
\nand youth.<\/p>\n

I mentioned earlier in my presentation this morning
\nabout child on-line protection.\u00a0 That’s one of the
\nspecific examples.<\/p>\n

This is actually channelled through workshops,
\ncountry actions, fellowships and trainings and also
\ndeployment of infrastructure.<\/p>\n

I would just invite you to read this when I leave
\nthe slides with the organisers, about the regional
\ninitiatives they have around here.<\/p>\n

And the specific ones that’s happening in the next
\ntwo years are really, again, if you look at the
\nprogrammes, you will realise that they are very base
\nlevel infrastructure type training, because I think
\naccess to infrastructure and broadband is still
\na challenge.\u00a0 Maybe not in Hong Kong, not in Singapore,
\nbut even in Malaysia, for example, it is still
\na problem.<\/p>\n

These are some of the calendar events.\u00a0 I don’t know
\nwhether these meetings are open.<\/p>\n

I guess you’ll have to check with the organisers.<\/p>\n

But a few examples which are useful from what
\nI notice is this.<\/p>\n

They have done some work with industry to help have
\ntrial sites in rural villages.<\/p>\n

They have also partnerships in Butan with the OLPC
\nscheme, in the Philippines connecting schools and
\ncommunities.<\/p>\n

And also gender programmes such as those relating to
\npersons with disabilities and those living in rural and
\ndisconnected communities.<\/p>\n

They have a special tool kit which you can have
\na look at.<\/p>\n

They have been working with the forum.<\/p>\n

They have also been doing some work on NGN.\u00a0 And
\nalso they have published a couple of case studies which
\nmay be useful to some of you.\u00a0 It’s available on the
\nsite.<\/p>\n

They do various study groups which actually look at
\nvarious issues relating to access, primarily, as well as
\nnetwork security.<\/p>\n

I have spoken about the child on-line protection
\ninitiative and the global on-line security agenda and
\nthey have a partnership with impact, so I won’t repeat
\nthat.<\/p>\n

I think what is worth mentioning here is in the
\nAsian Pacific, they have regional platform for
\ncooperation through the APT preparatory meetings, which
\nI think some private sector members are also involved,
\nI know Paul Wilson has been involved in some of these.<\/p>\n

They have also been involved in doing some capacity
\nbuilding with various centres of the excellence.<\/p>\n

Again, if you look at the subjects that they are
\nlooking at, it is very much infrastructure based access
\nissues that we are talking about.<\/p>\n

This is the training calendar for the training
\ncourses in 2010.<\/p>\n

This last point I just wanted to make on their
\nbehalf is the development programmes and the regional
\ninitiatives that they have for the region.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned earlier, they have about five
\nprogrammes in their work plan going forward.<\/p>\n

There are areas of common interest here in relation
\nto information infrastructure, creating, enabling
\nenvironment, capacity building.<\/p>\n

In terms of in this region specifically, these are
\nthe five focus areas that they are involved with.<\/p>\n

So, again, maybe not so much an issue in Hong Kong,
\nnot so much an issue in Singapore, some issue in
\nMalaysia, but I think a lot of other countries in the
\nregion would probably be looking at some of these
\nissues.<\/p>\n

With that, thank you very much from the ITU.<\/p>\n

Can I switch hats?\u00a0 I’m messed up, a convergence of
\ninterests.<\/p>\n

Anyway, this is Sharil, again, from Malaysia,
\nspeaking as the regulator.\u00a0 That’s the agency that pays
\nme to come here and do this job.<\/p>\n

I’m speaking about one particular aspect of the
\ndigital divide here only and that’s the government’s
\ninitiative or proposal to actually increase broadband
\npenetration for Malaysia.<\/p>\n

Quick snapshot of Malaysia, 28 million people, only
\n3 million broadband subscribers, which represents
\n36 per cent.<\/p>\n

14 million computer users, but only 3.2 million
\nhouseholds have computers.<\/p>\n

Pretty low numbers.<\/p>\n

16 million internet users, 36 per cent household
\nsubscription.<\/p>\n

We have a kind of a funny contrast between people
\nwho actually have the physical infrastructure for them
\nto access the internet, as opposed to those who don’t
\nhave, but probably use it through other means.<\/p>\n

We are one of the three ASEAN countries that have
\nhit beyond a hundred per cent, in terms of mobile
\npenetration, so mobile seems to be interesting.\u00a0 I think
\nthe only other countries in ASEAN are Singapore,
\nThailand and Malaysia.\u00a0 I think Hong Kong has hit
\nsomething like 170 per cent.<\/p>\n

The internet of things might well happen in
\nHong Kong, I guess.<\/p>\n

Everyone has two phones.<\/p>\n

But we have this happening in Malaysia.<\/p>\n

More than all these internet users in Malaysia have
\nbeen using community access centres to access the
\ninternet.<\/p>\n

So despite the fact that the household ownership or
\npenetration of internet is very low, we have 5,000
\nclinics and hospitals all with broadband access, 10,000
\nschools, 2,000 WiFi hot spots, all the universities, the
\nenterprises, the libraries, telecentres and government
\noffices either have free WiFi or you can log on.
\nProbably that’s part of the problem that’s not
\nencouraging people to subscribe at home.\u00a0 Why bother
\nsubscribing at home when you can get it free from some
\ntelecentre or some other community centre.<\/p>\n

When we approached — we have a target that we hope
\nto hit by the end of this year, which is to move from
\n36 per cent broadband penetration up to 50 per cent
\nhousehold penetration.<\/p>\n

We are taking that challenge up from both the supply
\nside and the demand side.<\/p>\n

What this means essentially is that government and
\nprivate sector is pushing supply and viability of
\nbroadband to as many areas that we can access, whether
\nit is economic or otherwise, so basically the idea is
\nthat anyone who wants access to broadband should have
\naccess to broad bard.<\/p>\n

But what we are finding also is that there’s a lot
\nthat we need to do from the regulatory standpoint to
\nactually improve awareness, attractiveness and
\naffordability of accessing broadband.<\/p>\n

This is not because Malaysia is a relatively still
\ndeveloping country, middle income compared to, say,
\nHong Kong or Singapore.<\/p>\n

So people still don’t have broadband or internet as
\nvery high up on their list of wants or needs.<\/p>\n

If they can get satellite TV, that’s probably higher
\non the list compared to broadband.<\/p>\n

But what the government is doing is that more than
\n600 million Ringgit is being spent on basic telephony.
\nThat’s I guess it’s approximately US$250 million.<\/p>\n

More than a billion Ringgit on community broadband
\ncentres.\u00a0 That works out to be about US$350 million.<\/p>\n

Another US$400 million to put up communications
\ntowers.<\/p>\n

The government and the industry is spending a lot of
\nmoney to try and get the infrastructure out as best as
\nwe can.<\/p>\n

We also — I get as a regulator, quite difficult
\nquestions from people who will continually ask me why is
\nbroadband in Hong Kong and Singapore faster and cheaper
\nthan what we get in Malaysia?<\/p>\n

That’s a problem I have to deal with.<\/p>\n

It’s got to do with economics and the fact that
\nI think Singapore and Hong Kong have liberalised and
\nopened up much, much earlier, compared to Malaysia.<\/p>\n

On the promotion and awareness, we have also put
\nsome money out for content development.\u00a0 We think
\npreservation and development of local content, local
\nculture is very important and there are various agencies
\nand ministries involved in this initiative.<\/p>\n

As for the tax people, we have been successful
\nworking with the tax people and the finance ministry to
\ntry and remove duties and taxes on not just user
\nequipment, but also equipment for service providers.\u00a0 So
\nif you’re bringing in a base station for Wimax?, for
\nexample, or LTE, you get a tax break on those things,
\nbecause we don’t manufacture them locally in Malaysia.<\/p>\n

In terms of how we as a regulator map the country,
\nwhat you see on the left side is the peninsula and the
\nright side is the two Malaysian states on the island or
\nborn you.<\/p>\n

That is not two scale.\u00a0 That is dog’s head is called
\nSabah and the dog’s body is Sarawak.\u00a0 The state of
\nSarawak is as big as the peninsula, but it’s only got
\n3.5 million people in it.<\/p>\n

What we have done is we have mapped out, for
\nexample, in the main cities and areas, having broadband
\naccess or more than 10 megabits, but the rest we are
\npushing it up to 4 megabits in all those ADSL exchanges,
\nwhich is highlighted by the orange dots.<\/p>\n

We also rolling out 3G because we have a high — we
\nhave been doing that for the last couple of years.
\nI think Malaysia also was one of the first countries in
\nthe world to actually introduce Wimax on a nationwide
\nbasis, so we have that running as well.<\/p>\n

Any form of technology that works, that’s cheap
\nenough and sustainable to deploy, we will use, as
\na regulator, we take a very technology agnostic approach
\nand a very open licensing regime.<\/p>\n

What’s interesting also, despite that low broadband
\npenetration, it seems that we don’t have to spend that
\nmuch time educating Malaysians on what to do on the
\ninternet.<\/p>\n

These are not our figures, these came from internet
\nworld statistics and all these other sources.<\/p>\n

Seems Malaysia are big on Yahoo, big on Friendster
\nand big on blogger.<\/p>\n

In fact, I found out that two months ago, a Malaysia
\ncompany actually bought Friendster, so.<\/p>\n

Compared to, say, other countries, I guess in terms
\nof awareness, we’re OK, in terms of subscription, we are
\nnot.<\/p>\n

Initiatives as I mentioned, briefly, we are busy
\ndoing all sorts of campaigns with all sorts of groups
\nwhether it is NGOs, other government groups and even the
\nlocal community to set up tell centres, setting up
\nfacilitator programmes in schools, developing showcases,
\nfriends and family programmes for broadband and so on,
\nthe idea being that the government believes that the
\nbroadband access is something that will help us go to
\nthe next level of economic development.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you for acting on both capacities.<\/p>\n

Now we go on to Eugene to give us an update from
\nSingapore.<\/p>\n

>> Eugene Chen:\u00a0 Thank you.\u00a0 A very good afternoon to
\neveryone here today.\u00a0 I’m Eugene from the Infocom
\nDevelopment Authority of Singapore.\u00a0 We are the
\ngovernment agency in Singapore tasked with regulating
\nthe telecommunications sector and developing the Infocom
\nindustry in Singapore.<\/p>\n

Part of our responsibilities also include raising
\nICT adoption levels in Singapore.<\/p>\n

In this regard, I will share some of our initiatives
\nand programmes that we hope will help to narrow the
\ndigital divide in Singapore.<\/p>\n

I’m sure all of us here recognise that Infocom is
\nincreasingly an enabler of economic and social growth
\ntoday.\u00a0 As such, it is critical that no one is left
\nbehind.<\/p>\n

PC and internet penetration rates in Singapore is
\nrelatively high, at about 80 per cent in 2009.<\/p>\n

However, even as prices have fallen for computers
\nand broadband access, they do remain out of reach for
\nsome pockets of society.<\/p>\n

In view of this, the Singapore government has
\nintroduced several social initiatives under our 10 year
\nInfocom master plan, in that bridging the digital divide
\nin Singapore.<\/p>\n

One of our plans, which we term the new PC plus
\nprogramme, was introduced in 1999 to provide less
\nprivileged families with computers, software and
\ninternet connection.<\/p>\n

To date, the new PC programme has benefited more
\nthan 28,000 needy households.<\/p>\n

This initiative basically offers subsidised PCs
\nwhich comes together with broadband internet access for
\nabout S$200 to 300, to low income families with school
\ngoing children or disabled members.<\/p>\n

Families are offered a choice between a desktop and
\na laptop.\u00a0 Software such as Microsoft windows, Microsoft
\nOffice and security software are also included in this
\nbundle.<\/p>\n

Together with three years of unlimited broadband
\naccess.<\/p>\n

But we also recognise that some families may not be
\nable to afford this amount of money.\u00a0 As such, we have
\narranged for additional assistance schemes to further
\nreduce or even eliminate the cost entirely.<\/p>\n

For instance, there is a scheme whereby applicants
\ncan actually earn free computers by rendering community
\nservice.<\/p>\n

School children can volunteer to teach elderly folks
\nhow to use computers at community centres.\u00a0 In addition,
\nthere are tie-ups with other charitable organisations to
\nreduce or eliminate the cost of the PCs.<\/p>\n

The long-term vision of this new PC initiative is to
\nensure that there is 100 per cent computer ownership in
\nhomes with school going children by 2015.<\/p>\n

For households which already own a PC but cannot
\nafford to pay for internet access, we also have
\na package to offer subsidised broadband subscription to
\nneedy households.<\/p>\n

This is pegged at about the rate of $1.50 per month
\nfor one megabit per second unlimited broadband access to
\nhomes.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, for those that do not require
\ninternet access in their homes or prefer not to do so,
\nwe have rolled out free 1 megabit per second WiFi
\nservice in public areas in Singapore, which we have
\ntermed Wireless at SG.<\/p>\n

The aim was to extend broadband usage beyond homes,
\nschools and offices to public areas in Singapore.<\/p>\n

At the same time, it offers an alternative to users
\nwho do not wish to sign up or pay for a fixed broadband
\nsubscription in their homes.<\/p>\n

Response from the public has been quite strong and
\nthere are about 1.5 million subscribers as
\nof December 2009.<\/p>\n

Singapore has a population of about 5 million.\u00a0 So
\nthis is relatively good ratio.<\/p>\n

The usage per user has also been high with users
\nclocking an average of, a monthly average of 6.7 hours
\nin December 2009.<\/p>\n

As for our elderly population, we have rolled out
\nthe Silver Infocom Initiative, which provides IT
\ntraining to elderly and customised to individual needs
\nand abilities.<\/p>\n

Training to the elderly is conducted in senior
\ncitizen corners or community centres and customised to
\ndifferent dialects and at a slower pace to ensure that
\nthe elderly can keep up with the pace of learning.<\/p>\n

They are taught how to use new technologies, such as
\nmobile phones, voice over IP and instand messaging to
\ncommunicate.\u00a0 They are also exposed to different on-line
\nservices, such as Bill payment, E shopping and even
\nsocial networking through Facebook, which hopefully will
\nenhance their quality of life.<\/p>\n

There are also events organised with the industry
\nand community to enrich the learning experience of
\nsenior citizens through talks, exhibitions and hands-on
\ntraining.<\/p>\n

Finally, we are setting up 100 hot spots island wide
\nto provide free access to computers and internet
\nservices for senior citizens.<\/p>\n

With this initiative in place, we hope to better
\nmeet the challenges of the digital divide in Singapore
\nand future.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you, Eugene.<\/p>\n

Just a quick note on time, I was told that I can
\noverrun for about 15, 20 minutes, so please be aware of
\nthe time, but please no need to rush at this point.<\/p>\n

Next up we have Christine, now moving away from
\ngovernment, now into the NGO area.<\/p>\n

>> Christine Runnegar:\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

Dear internet colleagues, again, let me thank
\neveryone for inviting the Internet Society to contribute
\nto this discussion on access in the digital divide in
\nAsia and the Pacific.<\/p>\n

One of the Internet Society’s central missions is to
\nensure that the internet is for everyone.\u00a0 We see
\na future in which people everywhere can use the internet
\nto prove quality of life.\u00a0 When standards, technologies,
\napplications, business practices and government policies
\nsustain and open and universally accessible platform for
\ninnovation, creativity and economic opportunity.<\/p>\n

Emerging economies are the key to the future of the
\ninternet.<\/p>\n

With access in developed countries near 80 per cent,
\nthe next frontier for internet growth lies substantially
\nin emerging markets.<\/p>\n

The next slide is intended to illustrate the
\ndifferences in internet access and usage among countries
\nin Asia.<\/p>\n

According to public data made available by the ITU,
\nthe percentage of internet users of the world population
\nwas 23.9 per cent in 2008.<\/p>\n

The percentage was already much higher than the
\nworld average in parts of Asia, for example, the
\nRepublic of Korea, 75.8 per cent, Japan 75.2 per cent,
\nSingapore 69.6 per cent, Hong Kong 67 per cent and so
\non.<\/p>\n

However, a number of countries in Asia and the
\nPacific were and still remain well below the world
\naverage.<\/p>\n

But internet access is not just about numbers.<\/p>\n

It’s about people.<\/p>\n

If we take internet access in mainland China as an
\nexample, as at 30 June 2009, 25.5 per cent of the
\npopulation were internet users.\u00a0 However, certain
\ndemographic segments of the community had higher rates
\nof access than others.<\/p>\n

Just over 50 per cent of internet users were
\nteenagers and more than 70 per cent of internet users
\nwere urban based.<\/p>\n

It is also interesting to note that 80 per cent of
\ninternet users access the internet from their home.<\/p>\n

Why people use the internet will vary from country
\nto country and from person to person.<\/p>\n

In mainland China, as at 30 June 2009, the top three
\ncategories of reported use were entertainment,
\ninformation and communication.<\/p>\n

As I said at the outset of this presentation,
\nemerging economies are the next frontier of sustained
\ninternet growth.<\/p>\n

They are also the next frontier for the ongoing
\ndevelopment and evolution of the internet.<\/p>\n

As the internet is a network of networks, those that
\nconnect to it will have the ability to shape, influence
\nand define it.<\/p>\n

How these emerging economies approach, adopt and use
\nthe internet will have a significant impact on the
\ninternet’s future.<\/p>\n

Priority must be given to creating the conditions
\nfor internet growth and access for all, technical and
\npolicy capacity building, policy and regulatory
\nframeworks, internet freedom.<\/p>\n

The role of the internet as a global platform for
\ninnovation, economic development and social progress is
\nthreat earned when governments or institutions place
\nexcessive restrictions on the evolution and use of
\ninternet technology.<\/p>\n

Countries that wish to participate and wish to
\nbenefit from the internet in the global and participate
\nin the global information economy must ensure that their
\ncitizens have access to information and content.<\/p>\n

Open, unencumbered beneficial use of the internet is
\na fundamental principle of the Internet Society.<\/p>\n

The internet is not a TV.\u00a0 It’s a place for active
\nparticipation, creativity, innovation and sharing.<\/p>\n

Internet access means much more than physically
\nconnecting someone to the internet.\u00a0 Understanding what
\ninternet access means for each segment of a community
\nand why some people have access and others do not is the
\nfirst step towards developing internet policies that
\nwill encourage and foster increased and enhanced
\ninternet access.<\/p>\n

The second step is to recognise the
\ninterrelationship between different features of internet
\naccess.<\/p>\n

For example, internet exchange points allow locals
\nto communicate more cheaply and efficiently with each
\nother on the internet, which in turn encourages
\nincreased local content on the internet.<\/p>\n

Increased local content on the internet encourages
\nmore locals to access the internet.<\/p>\n

The third step is then to identify the physical,
\neconomic, cultural and social impediments to internet
\naccess at all levels, local, regional and national.<\/p>\n

And to investigate policies which might remove or
\nameliorate these impediments.<\/p>\n

For example, language and illiteracy are major
\nimpediments for some internet users and without
\na multilingual, multicultural internet there is no
\ninternet for all.<\/p>\n

To realise the full potential that the internet
\naccess offers, it is important that all dimensions have
\nlinguistic diversity, not just contents.<\/p>\n

Steps which go some way to closing this digital
\ndivide include internationalised domain names, encoding
\nof scripts in unicode standard, keyboard standards,
\nsoftware search engines and other applications in local
\nlanguages, translation services including speech to
\ntext, technical capacity building for local content
\ndevelopment, sharing experience and best practices in
\nmultilingual programmes and activities and of course
\nlocal content, locally produced and locally hosted,
\ntext, photos, pictures, sound and video.<\/p>\n

The fourth step then is to ensure that these
\npolicies, especially regulatory policies, are
\nproportionate to the issues they are seeking to address.<\/p>\n

Overly regulated technology applications and
\nservices stifle innovation and discourage use.<\/p>\n

The fifth step is to take advantage of the synergies
\noffered by a collaborative multi-stakeholder approach to
\nresolving internet access and impediments and closing
\nthe digital divide.<\/p>\n

We are seeing the potential benefits of this today
\nin the context of our discussions on internet
\ngovernance.<\/p>\n

The internet leaders of the future will come from
\nthe next generation of internet users and the internet
\nof the future will come from the next generation of
\ninternet users.<\/p>\n

Internet access is about giving the current and the
\nnext generation of internet users the access, the
\nknowledge and the capacity to use the internet, to
\nparticipate in shaping its development and evolution and
\nto contribute to the internet’s success.<\/p>\n

The Internet Society believes that openness is the
\noverarching principle that has ensured the success and
\ngrowth of the internet to date.<\/p>\n

Openness underpins the key enablers user access
\nchoice and transparency.<\/p>\n

If we are committed to ensuring that the internet is
\nfor everyone, then we must do our part to increase and
\nenhance internet access.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples of some projects from within
\nthe internet community within the Internet Society’s
\ncommunity, targeting these issues.<\/p>\n

For example, the first one, in the first one, we
\nhave kits for digital inclusion in Spanish and Qichua,
\nwhich was a project undertaken by our chapter in
\nEquador.<\/p>\n

It provides a guide for the first internet
\nexperience in both languages.<\/p>\n

It’s also important to emphasise technical capacity
\nbuilding and some good places to look for technical
\ncapacity building are SANOG, PACNOG and APRICOT which
\nthe Internet Society also supports.<\/p>\n

Finally, there is great diversity in the region and
\neach subregion has, apart from cross cutting issues,
\nunique issues and challenges that need to be looked into
\nas well.<\/p>\n

This should come from a bottom up community driven
\nprocess.<\/p>\n

So get involved, start creating local networks of
\ninterested individuals, be inclusive, seek diverse
\nskills and experience, have an open discussion of issues
\nat the national and local level and encourage policy
\nmakers to engage with all stakeholders and develop
\nsolutions for the local content.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you, Christine.<\/p>\n

John, I sort of recommend you pick up the mic and
\nspeak, because the stand keeps dropping.<\/p>\n

John will talk a little bit about very exciting
\ninitiative in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

>> John Fung:\u00a0 The only thing is I need to.<\/p>\n

Perhaps someone can flip the slides for me.<\/p>\n

I would like to start by introducing myself and the
\norganisation I’m coming from.<\/p>\n

I’m from the Hong Kong Council of Social Service.
\nWe are registered in 1947.\u00a0 We are the biggest
\nassociation of NGOs in Hong Kong, almost all social
\nservice NGOs, nonprofits, are our members.<\/p>\n

373 member organisations providing more than
\n90 per cent of all social services in Hong Kong and
\nwhile the government is doing a small part of social
\nservices in the territory, we have about 3,000 points,
\nservice delivery points in the community.<\/p>\n

We are a co-ordinator, an enabler and also
\na facilitator in the promotion of social justice and so
\non.<\/p>\n

We also represent NGOs to work with the government
\nin agenda setting, policy formulation, et cetera.<\/p>\n

I’m from a subsidiary incorporated in —
\na subsidiary of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service
\nincorporated in 2004.<\/p>\n

We are called Information Technology Resource
\nCentre.<\/p>\n

We basically do two things.\u00a0 We act as a total
\nsolution ICT solution provider, total solution provider,
\nfor on in profits in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

At the same time, we represent the Hong Kong Council
\nof Social Service to work on social issues in
\nInformation Society.<\/p>\n

Digital divide is one of them.\u00a0 We also work on
\ninternet addiction, child protection on-line and we have
\na range of different programmes to achieve that.<\/p>\n

Today, we are only looking at digital divide.<\/p>\n

We try to approach digital divide from a social
\njustice angle.\u00a0 It’s not only from a charity angle.\u00a0 We
\nlook at digital divide as a new form of social solution
\nin Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

I don’t need to convince anyone in this room that
\nICT development is marginalising disadvantaged
\npopulation and if appropriate actions are not taken
\nimmediately, these people will lose out in education,
\nemployment, healthcare, life chances in general.<\/p>\n

Luckily, there seems to be a consensus in Hong Kong
\nnow that something needs to be done urgently to close
\nthe digital gap.<\/p>\n

Transformation of Hong Kong into a knowledge economy
\nwould not be possible without helping the most needy and
\ne-government and other E initiatives would be widening
\nthe gap if we don’t have a pro-poor and pro-disadvantage
\nelement in those policies and programmes.<\/p>\n

We have very high PC penetration, but like all other
\nmodern societies, as age goes up, the penetration comes
\ndown.<\/p>\n

We also have a digital divide by income, household
\nincome.\u00a0 While the richer families have almost attained
\na hundred per cent penetration in the household, in
\nterms of using internet and PC, the poorest family in
\nHong Kong, the poorest group of families in Hong Kong,
\nabout 30 something per cent.<\/p>\n

How big is the digital gap?\u00a0 I’m quoting
\na comprehensive measurement of digital divide, of
\nvarious types of disadvantaged groups.\u00a0 It’s from
\nresearch sponsored by the Hong Kong Government.<\/p>\n

We used the situation of non-disadvantaged
\nindividuals as the measurement yardstick and the rating
\nis 1.<\/p>\n

So the further away from 1, the worse.<\/p>\n

As you can see from the slide, older people and
\npeople with disabilities are the two most severe groups,
\nin terms of digital marginalisation.<\/p>\n

This is a conceptual framework we use when we plan
\nour programmes and conduct our research.<\/p>\n

I think I’ll skip that one.<\/p>\n

I’m now going to cite some examples in tackling the
\ndigital divide.\u00a0 I would like to look at it from four
\ndifferent dimensions.<\/p>\n

The first dimension I call it accessibility divide.<\/p>\n

What Tony talked about and our previous speakers had
\nmentioned mostly belong to this type.<\/p>\n

That is to provide home based or outside home
\naccess.\u00a0 The infrastructure.\u00a0 The telecentres
\ninitiatives, the one laptop per child as an example,
\ncomputer recycling initiatives and all kinds of
\nsubsidies or donation in terms of band width, hardware,
\nsoftware, they all belong to this type, that is to
\nprovide infrastructure, to provide the accessibility.<\/p>\n

We conducted some computer recycling, recycled
\nabout, refurbish about 10,000 computers this one year.
\nSome NGOs are still doing that.<\/p>\n

Mainly, done by volunteers and through voluntary
\norganisations.<\/p>\n

Merely providing the access is not good enough,
\nobviously.<\/p>\n

The second type or second dimension of digital
\ndivide is what I call the knowledge and skill died.<\/p>\n

A lot of initiatives including telecentres and
\ntraining programmes, awareness building, training of all
\nlevels and also the training of disadvantaged groups to<\/p>\n

look after their own computers, a bit of technical
\nsupport and maintenance provision of those support and
\nmaintenance services belong to this type.<\/p>\n

Capacity building, skill building, knowledge
\nbuilding.<\/p>\n

So this is the second type.<\/p>\n

The third type I call it design divide.<\/p>\n

Conceptually, you can look at it also as originating
\nfrom a knowledge deficit, but this deficit is on the
\nside of designers, ICT professionals and web designers
\nand so on.<\/p>\n

To tackle that divide, we need to enforce policies
\nregarding universal access, standards in terms of
\nsoftware and web designs.<\/p>\n

We conduct programmes to educate and train NGOs,
\nSME, ICD professionals in terms of how to make and
\ncreate accessible products.<\/p>\n

There are also a range of activities to acknowledge
\nbest practice in universal and accessible design.<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, there are still a large group of
\nICT professionals who have never thought about how blind
\npeople can access computers and surf the internet.<\/p>\n

One example about the importance of the divide, of
\ncourse, is the use of ATMs and some of them, most of
\nthem in Hong Kong are not accessible to wheelchairs or
\nthe blind and visually impaired.<\/p>\n

They couldn’t even reach the ATM machines.<\/p>\n

By a simple adjustment, they would be able to do
\nthat, so I’m just using that example to illustrate how
\nimportant design is.<\/p>\n

Finally, the fourth dimension, the fourth type of
\ndigital divide I call it application and content divide.<\/p>\n

It is about relevance.\u00a0 It is about the relevance of
\nICT to disadvantaged groups.<\/p>\n

It is about developing relevant content to suit the
\nspecial needs.<\/p>\n

It is about developing specially designed
\napplications to the sustainable interests and therefore
\nutilisation of ICT.<\/p>\n

I’m going to show a video about 2 minutes long.<\/p>\n

It’s an award winning application.<\/p>\n

It’s called chicken soup for the brain, for old
\npeople.<\/p>\n

It’s all very well to point out that there are ways
\nto close the digital gap and build a digitally more
\ninclusive society, but we have problems.<\/p>\n

The first problem is digital divide is not easy to
\narticulate for most.<\/p>\n

The second problem related to the first one is that
\nthere is a range of social agenda, for example, poverty,
\ndiscrimination, human rights, protection of environment,
\net cetera, competing for protection.\u00a0 So it’s not easy
\nto find funders to fund those community programmes,
\nresulting in extreme difficulties in financing of those
\ncommunity programmes, despite the fact that those
\ncompeting agendas, so to speak, are somehow, if you
\nnotice, related to digital gap, especially in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

What should we do?<\/p>\n

Therefore, we established a digital solidarity fund.
\nWe have two objectives, first is to secure financial
\nsupport for digital inclusion programmes in Hong Kong.
\nThe second one is to engage different stakeholders in
\ndesigning, implementing digital inclusion strategies as
\na platform.<\/p>\n

We have to give some credit to the Hong Kong
\nGovernment this time for their staying away from
\nexerting direct control on the fund.\u00a0 They are a major
\nfunder, but they are not making the fund a government
\nfund, which is very important.<\/p>\n

Instead, the government has entrusted the committee
\nto manage the fund and by doing so, avoiding a lot of
\nred tape within the bue rocky and increasing flexibility
\nof fund utilisation, releasing a lot of energy and
\ncreativity from the community.<\/p>\n

The government does not assume chairmanship even of
\nthe fund management committee.\u00a0 The Fund Management
\nCommittee is chaired by independent person.\u00a0 The
\nHong Kong couple of social service, we, run the
\nsecretariat office.\u00a0 We don’t make decision about the
\nfund, the usage of the fund.<\/p>\n

The government, like all other donor, serves in the
\nDSF committee and take part in the management as
\na group.<\/p>\n

It’s a manifestation of multi-stakeholderism, so to
\nspeak.<\/p>\n

Over the years, we have developed a — these are the
\nsponsors.<\/p>\n

Scope of beneficiaries, including the digitally
\ndisadvantaged from senior persons to people with
\ndisabilities, low income families, new arrivals to
\nHong Kong, women and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n

Over the years, we have developed quite
\na sophisticated workflow in managing the fund and
\nidentifying, selecting, supporting and monitoring
\ndigital inclusion projects in the community.<\/p>\n

These are the types of programmes that we will fund
\nto provide, enhance the ICT access, improving skills and
\nintegration of ICT disadvantaged groups into the
\nInformation Society and so on.<\/p>\n

Mainly, related to the four types of digital divide
\nthat I have just mentioned.<\/p>\n

Here are the criteria for project selection.<\/p>\n

As you can see, we give a lot of importance to
\nimpact, social impact and cost effectiveness and also we
\nhad a process to look at the track record of the
\napplicants of the NGOs involved and see if they have the
\ncapacity to deliver such projects.<\/p>\n

What we have done so far, total number of projects
\nsupported, 55.<\/p>\n

Total number of beneficiaries is nearly 200,000.
\nTotal sum of grant made so far is US$1.2 million.<\/p>\n

Not a terribly huge fund, but it is strategically
\nvery important, because of the multi-stakeholderism.<\/p>\n

We totally receive 239 projects, so most of them we
\nhave not been able to fund.<\/p>\n

The total sum of fund requested has reached
\n5.3 million.\u00a0 That means we have been catering for only
\n18 per cent of all the requests.<\/p>\n

Here are some project examples.<\/p>\n

This is a project done by the Hong Kong family
\nwelfare society, mainly to outreach to women in shopping
\nmalls directly inside the mall and through the use of
\nlaptops.<\/p>\n

Providing IT skills training, awearness building
\nmostly, such as blogging and use of digital camera.<\/p>\n

Engaged nearly 6,000 targeted women.\u00a0 We engaged
\nnearly 600 volunteers in the programme.<\/p>\n

We trained groups of women as volunteers as well.<\/p>\n

We also develop a curriculum specially designed for
\nwomen.<\/p>\n

The next one is called digital angel, mainly
\ntraining senior citizens as digital angels and trainers
\nto other senior citizens in digital lifestyles such as E
\nbanking, e-government services, et cetera, reading
\nnewspapers and so on.<\/p>\n

These are some of the results.<\/p>\n

The next one is quite interesting.\u00a0 We provide funds
\nto the Blind Union, who will team of blind persons,
\nvisually impaired persons, to check 30 most popular
\nwebsite of Hong Kong and see if they comply with
\ninternational standards.<\/p>\n

They are not doing it just by using software, they
\nare doing it from really user experience, so they are
\ndoing it by real persons.<\/p>\n

The next one is also very interesting.\u00a0 It is done
\nby the Hong Kong Lutheran Social Service, an NGO in
\nHong Kong.<\/p>\n

They are trying to transform the traditional voice
\ninteractive telephone hotline into 3G calls, because the
\ninteractive voice telephone hotline traditionally, they
\nwere not accessible by hearing impaired, so the kind
\nthat if you check for weather from the Hong Kong
\nObservatory, whatever you push 1, whatever you push 2,
\nthese are not accessible to deaf people, so they are
\ntrying to transform that into 3G video call, by using
\na specially designed software.<\/p>\n

That’s been very successful and welcomed by a range
\nof hearing impaired persons.\u00a0 We give them funds to
\nenhance that.<\/p>\n

Right now, they are trying to link up the system
\nwith the booking of clinics for the deaf people, which
\nis very meaningful.<\/p>\n

I would like to add some special features of the
\ndigital solidarity fund.\u00a0 By you can see the digital
\nsolidarity fund is not a programme, it’s a initiative to
\nsupport a range of different programmes of different
\nnature in the community.<\/p>\n

We have very transparent assessment and grant making
\nprocess.\u00a0 We have a high level of flexibility, but
\nappropriate accountability measures.\u00a0 We have
\nquantifiable deliverables.\u00a0 We are very specific APIs
\nand we only release the funds upon completion of
\nprojects, but usually for smaller NGOs, upon their
\nrequest, we can give them 50 per cent of all the funds
\nrequested first, upfront.<\/p>\n

Then the rest would be deliverable, will be granted
\nto them after they have completed the programme.<\/p>\n

The DSF committee members will visit funded projects
\nevery now and then two monitor the progress themselves.<\/p>\n

Whereby we try to use that platform to educate our
\nenterprise partners to digital inclusion programmes in
\nthe community as well.<\/p>\n

We also say that we will start funding if
\na programme fails to progress satisfactorily.\u00a0 We have
\nnever done that yet (stop funding.<\/p>\n

Some new changes ahead.\u00a0 We are trying to change our
\nannual grant cycle to half yearly grant making cycle, so
\nthat we can respond better to the community needs.<\/p>\n

We are going to have a more robust fundraising
\nprogramme.\u00a0 We are going to have enhanced communication
\nwith digital solidarity partners who are the funders.
\nWe also establishing an E platform for knowledge sharing
\non digital inclusion programmes.<\/p>\n

We have specific grants for assisted technology for
\ndisabled people and the aged and we also are trying to
\npush for more integration with other digital inclusive
\ninitiatives, such as the one that just mentioned by Tony
\nbefore, the digital cyber centre alliance and so on and
\nso forth.<\/p>\n

I need to talk to you about DSF Induction Programme,
\nbecause Edmon asked me to.<\/p>\n

It’s sponsored by Internet Society and also DotAsia.<\/p>\n

Because right now we have developed, as I said,
\nquite a sophisticated grant making platform and web
\nprocess, we would like to introduce the DSF model to
\ndifferent countries in the Asian Pacific region.<\/p>\n

We have we do the briefing, we have often work out
\na DSF induction resource kit.<\/p>\n

That would include the in and outs of Digital
\nSolidarity Fund, from fundraising to fund management,
\nthe annual work plan, how we select projects and how we
\nidentify them, how we monitor them and so on.<\/p>\n

We have started our induction programme, we only
\nhave funds to do three inductions, so the first one is
\ncurrently on the way.\u00a0 We are doing it for Internet
\nSociety China and we still receiving interested parties
\napplication, if you like.<\/p>\n

So if you are interested in knowing more about DSF
\nprogramme, you may well be our second candidate in this
\nDSF Induction Programme.<\/p>\n

Please talk to Edmon or myself afterwards if you are
\ninterested.<\/p>\n

Somehow, it’s also, it’s only limited to Asian
\nPacific region.<\/p>\n

Edmon is a very open minded person.<\/p>\n

Finally, I would like to conclude by sharing with
\nyou the voices of some disadvantaged friends.\u00a0 They
\nalways remind me of what we are doing and why we are
\ndoing it for.<\/p>\n

First case is Kim.\u00a0 Kim is a visually impaired —
\ntotally blind person and he said if I were computer
\nilliterate, I wouldn’t have obtained employment.<\/p>\n

He is now managing a charity trust.<\/p>\n

Mr Chan, 70 plus, said:<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to be left alone by society.\u00a0 I’m
\nstill useful.\u00a0 I can use computer to do lots of things.”<\/p>\n

Ah Mei is a single parent.\u00a0 In a few years time, my
\ndaughter will be turning 15.\u00a0 I want to learn more
\ncomputer skills so that I could get a job, because after
\n15, Ah Mei’s entitlement to social security as a single
\nparent would stop.<\/p>\n

On that, I will finish my presentation.\u00a0 For those
\nwho are interested in knowing more about the fund, we
\nhave a case book including some of our programmes funded
\nby DSF.\u00a0 I have 30 copies.\u00a0 So if you are interested,
\nplease collect them from out there somewhere.<\/p>\n

Thank you very much.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you, John.\u00a0 Now with move on to, we
\nare running out of time, but we will overrun for about
\n25 minutes.\u00a0 That’s OK.<\/p>\n

If people are willing to stay, of course.<\/p>\n

I think it has been interesting discussion.<\/p>\n

Going on to panellists, judgment probably some
\ncomments and feedback on some of the issues and
\nintroduce yourself as well as we go along, but before
\nyou go, Pindar, we also have a person on-line, Rafik,
\nare you on line with us?<\/p>\n

INTERPRETER:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Rafik Dammak is also joining us only panel
\nthrough on-line, but Pindar.<\/p>\n

>> Pindar Wong:\u00a0 Welcome everyone.\u00a0 In the interests of time,
\nI would just like to in a sense begin with John left
\noff, his last slide I think was very important, because
\nit asks the question why.<\/p>\n

That’s really the question I would like to ask the
\npanel, which is why are we so interested in this gap?
\nMore importantly, where are we going?\u00a0 The reason why
\nI ask this question is because having been involved with
\nthe internet since about 17 years ago, there has always
\nbeen a gap between what I have and what you have and
\nwhen it’s characterised in terms of a gap, in terms of
\neither an age gap or whether or not internet\u00a0 previously
\nwas nice to have, it’s now a must have, when we measure
\nthe gap and when we characterise the gap in terms of
\ncertain metric, whether or not they have on like access
\nand the numbers of PCs and stuff like that, it’s quite
\nnatural for us to find solutions to narrow that gap and
\nthe point I would like to try and make is I’m an
\noptimist and I see that over time, we will, as an
\noptimist, close those gaps, those gaps between where
\nthings are, perceived to be unfair.<\/p>\n

The more important gap that I see is the gap in
\nproduction.<\/p>\n

So as we talk about access, who are the ones who
\nbenefit by more Asian Pacific people coming on line?<\/p>\n

Well, obviously, the providers, the people more
\ngoing to sell you the equipment, the people who are
\ngoing to provide the bandwidth, the people who are in
\nthe business of providing these services, so the next
\nbig thing will be internationalised domain names, which
\nwill create a great market, a monopoly market, perhaps
\na perpetual monopoly market, in an area that will in
\nsome sense, not tax, but everyone will be encouraged to
\ncontribute to that, as Asian Pacific comes on-line.<\/p>\n

So my question, for those economies who don’t make
\nPCs or mobile phones or in the business of providing
\nthese telecommunication services, what is going to be
\nyour benefit of moving to the knowledge economy?<\/p>\n

In Hong Kong, we are trying to answer this in a very
\ninteresting way, insofar as a service economy, we will
\nnot make ourselves rich by opening doors for one
\nanother, we will not make ourselvess rich by massaging
\neach other’s fight feet.\u00a0 We will contribute by what we
\nhope to create is the knowledge economy and what
\nI actually think is more accurate to be calling it the
\ncreative economy.<\/p>\n

Which is why, in addition to all the wonderful
\nprogrammes you have heard about access and providing
\naccess to disadvantaged or people who are not able to
\nafford commitment, et cetera, we are also retooling the
\nwhole education system.\u00a0 Right now, there is a new
\ncompulsory subject introduced last year which is liberal
\nstudies, which is trying to teach our senior secondary
\nstudents in some sense how to think, to look at on the
\none hand, on the other, why is that important?\u00a0 Because
\non the internet, you don’t know what’s true.<\/p>\n

But more importantly, as we move towards the
\nknowledge economy or the creative economy, we have two
\ninteresting things.\u00a0 One, we have introduced a new
\ncopyright system here called creative comments which is
\nfrom somewhere else.\u00a0 We also have, no surprises here,
\na whole new government department called Create
\nHong Kong, which is supposed to foster creativity.<\/p>\n

We all can see the computers, et cetera, which are
\ndesigned in America, but manufactured in Asia.<\/p>\n

When we move to the market where we are actually
\ncontributing our intellectual property, our ideas, is
\nwhere I believe we will close what I perceive as being
\nthe more important gap, not the gap of access, the gap
\nof production and productive capacity.<\/p>\n

Because everything I’ve heard today is in some sense
\na cost.\u00a0 I would like to know if you’re not a provider,
\nwhere the revenue is going to come from.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Paul Fung:\u00a0 I’m Paul from iProA, where our association
\nreally did take part in some of the governments
\nprojects, like the E inclusion project, if you still
\nremember like Tony just said, there are many digital
\ncyber centres which provide computers to poor and
\nelderly people to learn computer in different districts.<\/p>\n

One point I really want to point out, because I can
\nsee that I got a lot of international participants over
\nhere, is the characteristics of the Chinese society on
\nplaying internet, as an interactive tool.<\/p>\n

The natural barrier that we have is the input method
\nof Chinese.<\/p>\n

It creates kind of barriers that the elderly and the
\nyoungsters are not so interactive as per the
\nparticipation that we can have in the Latin American
\ncharacter systems, that you can naturally just use your
\ncomputer keyboard to input everything you think and
\ntalk, actually.<\/p>\n

But in Chinese, we are using double bite character,
\nthe square bits of things that cannot be easily input
\nvia the keyboard provide and come with the PC we have.<\/p>\n

So everybody want to take part on the internet
\nculture and everything that plays on-line, has to learn
\nhow to input and how to present themselves on internet.<\/p>\n

That is quite a barrier that we found when we are
\ncarrying out different kind of e-inclusion project and
\nlike the Web Care Campaign that we are trying and try to
\nmake the people aware of the usage of internet.<\/p>\n

The second point I want to bring out here is the
\nchange of business method today did widen what we
\nspecified on digital divide.<\/p>\n

If we still can remember 10 years before, everybody
\ncoming back to the office, we got a lot of paperwork.<\/p>\n

But today, when you come back to your office, do you
\nstill have a pile of paper laying on your desk, waiting
\nfor you to process it or do it?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 What you are doing
\nis turn on your computer, get the email, get all the
\nelectronic document and replay and that is actually most
\nof the work with most of the time we spend with our
\ncomputer.<\/p>\n

Once we don’t have paper, people don’t know how to
\nuse computers, did fall into the gap that Pindar just
\nmentioned.<\/p>\n

That is the things that we really want to address in
\nour campaign, like John and other people is doing, in
\nthe society, and trying to bring the productivity of
\npeople back by teaching them computer.<\/p>\n

That is what I want to address the two major things
\nthat I really want to take care and want to have our
\ninternational participants understand what we are facing
\nin Hong Kong about digital divide.<\/p>\n

A little add on on what the previous speaker said.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Michael Gurstein:\u00a0 My name is Michael Gurstein and I’m
\nwith something called the Centre for Community
\nInfomatics Research, Development and Training.<\/p>\n

I’m actually from Vancouver, which is very much an
\nAsian Pacific city.<\/p>\n

I have had over the last year, I guess, the
\nopportunity to visit, research and work in about eight
\ncountries in the Asian Pacific region.\u00a0 I was just
\ncounting them and I came up with eight.<\/p>\n

What I would like to do is I would like to comment
\nfirst on the extremely interesting presentation from our
\ncolleagues from Hong Kong and then try to put that in
\na broader context, based on what I have seen elsewhere
\nin the Asian Pacific region.<\/p>\n

I find what our Hong Kong colleagues are doing in
\nresponding to the issues of the digital divide extremely
\ninteresting, because what they’re doing based on
\na internet penetration rate, which is somewhere between
\n60 and 80 per cent, is to target specific applications
\nat specific uses, particular areas of interest and what
\nI call effective uses relating to specific population
\ngroups.<\/p>\n

I think that’s really interesting that the public
\nsector and the NGO sector in Hong Kong in fact has
\nchosen that as a strategy.<\/p>\n

I say that because if one steps back a bit and looks
\nat the broader area of access and approach to access,
\ngenerally, the issue of access is only defined in terms
\nof passive access, simply the making the availability of
\ninternet or making internet available in some form
\nwithout really being concerned with how it is being
\nused.<\/p>\n

What’s really interesting in Hong Kong is that
\nhaving reached the level of 80 per cent, if 80 per cent
\npenetration, they recognise that in order to go beyond
\nthat, to achieve 100 per cent penetration, they really
\nhave to find the areas where internet access will be
\nuseful and interesting and effective in particular areas
\nfor the population.<\/p>\n

I think that’s interesting, because I think the real
\nquestion, forgive me, people from Hong Kong, but the
\nreal issue with respect to the internet is not how to
\nmove from 80 per cent to 100 per cent, in the region,
\nbut really to how to move from 5 per cent in Bangladesh
\ninternet penetration to 25 per cent or 50 per cent.<\/p>\n

Because that is the more general, I think, issue in
\nthe developing world, with respect to the internet and
\nmaking available the opportunities that the internet
\npresents for development.<\/p>\n

Because the internet does provide not simply means
\nfor dealing with social issues, but also probably more
\nimportantly, it provides issues, means for dealing with
\nthe fundamental problems of a developing society, how to
\nin fact achieve economic broad based and social
\ndevelopment.<\/p>\n

I think that if one looks at Hong Kong, and
\nHong Kong’s approach to the digital divide, then I think
\nthe issue for the IGF and for other country, developing
\ncountries in the region, really is not simply the
\nprovision of access, but the provision of means by which
\nthe internet can be used, actually used, in ways to
\nsupport development.<\/p>\n

That’s the challenge, it seems to me, is how to take
\naccess and to translate access into the real
\nopportunities and means for achieving development.<\/p>\n

I challenge the Internet Governance Forum, because
\nit seemed to me that in the past, the Internet
\nGovernance Forum has been rather more concerned with
\nsimply the extension of access, rather than how access
\ncan actually and practically be used in support of
\ndevelopment initiatives in those societies where
\ninternet access is not 80 per cent, but internet access
\nis 3 or 4 or 5 per cent.<\/p>\n

That really is a broader, I think, global challenge,
\nis how to make the opportunities that are available
\nthrough the internet for development, for achieving
\na measure of economic and social broader base of
\neconomic and social equity, how to achieve, in fact,
\nthat as a social goal.<\/p>\n

I guess I would suggest that as an Asian Pacific
\nInternet Governance Forum, that the direction be to
\nchallenge the IGF to in fact look at issues of the
\ninternet, not simply in terms of the extension of
\naccess, but how, in fact, the internet can be used as
\na tool for the broader social and economic development.<\/p>\n

The other element of this, I think, which hasn’t
\nreally been discussed in this panel, but comes up often
\nin this area, is the notion that simply providing
\ncellular access to the internet is sufficient.<\/p>\n

The problem with cellular access is that the broader
\nintegration of cellular access into the kind of
\neffective applications and uses as you’re seeing in
\nHong Kong, or as would really provide the support for
\ndevelopment in a country like Bangladesh, has really not
\nbeen achieved.<\/p>\n

I would challenge, I guess, the Asian Pacific region
\nand the Internet Governance Forum to in fact take on the
\nresponsibility of finding ways of supporting those
\ncountries that have not in fact achieved the transition
\ninto a digital society to allow them to in fact realise
\nthat kind of transition and begin to use, and begin to
\nachieve and realise the opportunities that the internet
\npresents to broader development.<\/p>\n

So thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you, Michael, for an insightful
\nobservation.\u00a0 I think really putting access where it
\nbelongs, that is as a means towards an end and an end
\nitself.<\/p>\n

Before I go to Rafik, just want to take a stock as
\nto who want to provide some comments or questions.<\/p>\n

Is Rafik with us?\u00a0 No, then let’s go to the floor.<\/p>\n

>> Izumi Aizu:\u00a0 I’m Izumi Aizu from Tokyo, Japan.\u00a0 Since
\nRafik is also in Tokyo, I would like to cover some
\naspects of strange story and policy about access in
\nJapan.<\/p>\n

Our Minister of Communication in December last year
\nsaid we want to aim 100 per cent coverage of the broad
\nwand and 100 per cent utilisation of the broadband.<\/p>\n

The status is that we have 90 per cent coverage and
\n30 per cent utilisation of the broadband, not internet.<\/p>\n

I fully agree with what Pindar said.\u00a0 Our policy
\ntalk tended to be focusing on the supply side and supply
\nside, but it is very difficult for the ministries and
\nthe panel of experts to make a case, where do you need
\nto use the broadband.\u00a0 There is a gap between 90 and 30
\nand we are making some argument.\u00a0 One can’t say, no,
\nlet’s just aim 100 per cent by breaking up the axis of
\nthe largest telco following Australia.<\/p>\n

But whether this making a very cheap local access of
\nbroadband really gives advantage to those disadvantaged
\npeople, be it the poor people or the people in remote
\nareas, they don’t see the case, because in the past 10
\nyears, the gap between rich and poor in Japan, in
\ngeneral, expanded.<\/p>\n

While the digital divide is being decreased.\u00a0 So
\nyour digital economy really help everyone to become
\nricher or for me, it’s just means for the use, not to be
\nleft out.\u00a0 You need some basic use of the broadband, but
\nstill it doesn’t guarantee you to earn additional added
\nvalue, economically, and creatively or culturally
\notherwise.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> :\u00a0 I’m Teddy from the Philippines.\u00a0 I would like to ask
\nabout the role of software, particularly open source
\napplications, on access.<\/p>\n

I know that Microsoft is a sponsor, but I have to
\nask this, in the Philippines, we are trying to form
\na comprehensive policy on open source.\u00a0 I would like to
\nask, based on the experiences of countries here
\nrepresented, what is the role of open source
\napplications in access?\u00a0 Is it a positive role and if
\nthere is a positive role, what is the role of government
\nin promoting open source and open standards?\u00a0 Should
\ngovernment in the first place intervene?\u00a0 Should it have
\nclear cut policy or should this just be left to the
\nmarket?\u00a0 Basically, that’s my question?<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Please take note and then we’ll come back.
\nWe’ll take a few more questions.<\/p>\n

I’ll have to ask everyone to be really brief.<\/p>\n

>> :\u00a0 My name is Verak again from Cambodia.<\/p>\n

I’m just interested in the panellists, as a panel
\nitself.\u00a0 I have noticed mainly the panellists are
\nrepresentative of the countries which are more advanced
\nand in this very topic of digital divide can be seen
\nhere, I guess.<\/p>\n

My comment is basically that I just want to point
\nout the digital divide is within countries, but also if
\nyou look at the different countries within Asian
\nPacific, I think there’s a major divide where countries
\nlike better Burma, Laos, Cambodia, East Timor would
\nprobably have less than one 10 per cent of the
\npopulation having access and access alone is not the
\nwhole point about internet.<\/p>\n

User generated content which is also, to me, very
\nimportant, particularly tied to free speech and human
\nrights and this is what I like to add, to Michael who
\nraised the issues of challenging the IGF to bring up
\nthis issue of development, but also the issues of human
\nrights and free speech and how the IGF can promote the
\nissue.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you.\u00a0 Take a question at the back and
\nthen at the front.\u00a0 Take one more and then we’ll go back
\nto the panel.<\/p>\n

>> :\u00a0 Narish Adjwani, President of Cyber Cafe Association of
\nIndia.<\/p>\n

Mine is more of a community than a question, because
\nthat’s really where I need to chip in from a perspective
\nof my understanding from the digital divide or reason
\nfor digital divide.<\/p>\n

I agree, I’m not disagreeing with any of the
\nimpediments mentioned so far, in terms of a physical or
\na cultural or funds or usage, but I think the piece
\nwhich is missing, whether it is a developed economy or
\nan emerging economy, is a last mile provision to the
\nuser.<\/p>\n

When I say last mile, in no way it means an internet
\naccess, it means a person or a place where one can
\nreally take advantage of internet usage and in my
\nopinion, the digital centres referred by one of the
\npanellist or cyber cafes, is a place where all the
\nthings can been care of.<\/p>\n

What I mean by all the things taken care of, the
\nchallenges which I have heard so far, whether it is
\naccess or affordability, or assistance or usage, all
\nthat can be really assimilated at that place and can be
\nprovided to the end user.<\/p>\n

I think the society has not done anything about
\npromoting those digital centres or they have not been
\nmade part of the policy making where they can really
\nhave a say.\u00a0 My request to this AP IGF would be kindly
\nconsider, it’s a very large community or it’s a very
\nlarge providers who need some kind of representation in
\nthe policy making and it will really take care of the
\nchallenges which we are talking about here.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> :\u00a0 Hello, my name is Akram Choudhry, I’m a parliament
\nmember from Bangladesh and also group chairman for
\nCentre for E parliament research.<\/p>\n

This is also not my question, but a comment that
\nMichael has appropriately pointed out.<\/p>\n

I really agreed with him, because in Bangladesh, the
\ngovernment, she has given a priority for digital
\nBangladesh, charter for change, but then minister also
\ntaking a lot of initiative, making supporting the
\nschools programme through establishing yap, but I feel
\nthat cyber side of the internet can be used for broader
\neconomic and social document in Bangladesh.\u00a0 The
\nBangladesh government has at least 13 programmes and
\nmost of the what we call reliefs, sometimes directed
\ntowards not appropriate people and it is because there
\nis a lack of kind of database of those persons deserving
\nall those kind of internet, who are entitled to all
\nthose services, social services.<\/p>\n

That’s why we actually developed centre for E
\nparliament research, so that the areas which are getting
\nkind of benefit or social safety net programme for the
\npoor, we are trying to develop database of those persons
\nwho deserve all those entitlements, so once the
\nconstitutional reaches all those things, must not be
\nmisdirected to all those other people.<\/p>\n

Therefore, internet can be used for broader social
\neconomic development as Michael stated.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> :\u00a0 My name is.<\/p>\n

First of all, I want to thank you very much for your
\npresentations.<\/p>\n

Especially I’m very pleased to hear that you have
\nbeen so doing many good things, good initiative to help
\npeople in your country to bring them to ICT for their
\nempowerment.<\/p>\n

I want to address the issue similar to from
\nCambodia, about the gap between each country is huge, in
\nterms of between country in Asian Pacific, comparing
\naccess to internet in Hong Kong, comparing to Laos, so
\nmuch different to where I come from.<\/p>\n

I think that it’s very difficult for a country like
\nLaos to help those marginalised, disadvantaged group to
\naccess to internet and computer, because if you look at
\nthe private sector, they don’t interested either,
\nbecause the market is too small.\u00a0 Like 6 million people
\nand profit not going to make a lot of profit out of it.<\/p>\n

Look at the government.\u00a0 They also don’t put it in
\nthe as priority, so the government has limited budget
\nfor development, so they put more priority on poverty
\neradication and so on.<\/p>\n

If you look at the donor agency, like Dr Li Shan
\nalso mentioned, it’s not in the development agenda as
\nwell.<\/p>\n

So my comment is that if you look at the regional
\nlevel, then that should be policy to help this
\ncountries, because it cannot, life depend on the local
\ngovernment to deal with is beyond their ability to do it
\nas well.<\/p>\n

For example, if Microsoft going to develop operating
\nsystem, they going to have licence, so that kind of
\npolicy will not really help those disadvantaged
\ncountries to get to the technology instead preventing
\nthem to be developed.<\/p>\n

That’s the issue I want to raise.<\/p>\n

Thank you very much.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you.\u00a0 Now I come back to the panel.
\nI have Pindar, Sharil.\u00a0 If I still have Rafik on the
\nline, Rafik and then Markus and also Christine.<\/p>\n

>> Pindar Wong:\u00a0 There was an earlier question about open
\nsource software and the benefits.\u00a0 Just to try and
\naddress that, I would see the benefits as being free,
\nfree not in the sense of the licence fees or royalties,
\nbut free to innovate and what I mean by innovate have it
\nis to meet your needs, the freedom to evolve the
\nsoftware to meet your nodes.\u00a0 The example of Laos and
\nthe 6 million, because they can download the software
\nand if they put the time and effort in, they can modify
\nit to meet their own requirements without having to
\ncheck with anyone.\u00a0 One of the benefits we heard from
\nChristine about the benefits of the internet is it is
\nbased on open standards.\u00a0 So you are not being locked in
\nor controlled by anyone.\u00a0 You are in some sense, you
\nhave the right to self-determine your on-line future by
\ndownloading and also contributing.\u00a0 It’s not just one
\nway.\u00a0 It’s contributing.\u00a0 I know the case in, for
\nexample, in Cambodia.\u00a0 The benefits I see of open source
\nsoftware, obviously there is the quality, there is over
\ntime, it depends to bugs tend to get ironed out, because
\neverything is transparent, but I see the real benefit of
\none of being in control of your own on line death any,
\nbecause you have the control to innovate and in that
\nsense, to develop those services, but what you need
\nhopefully also those which are revenue generates.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 I’ll go to Rafik first.\u00a0 Are you on the
\nline?<\/p>\n

Can we try to fix that?<\/p>\n

>> :\u00a0 Rafik this will be really short, so hello everybody,
\njust to introduce myself briefly.\u00a0 My name is Rafik
\nDamak.\u00a0 I’m from Tunisia, where it is not a part of
\nAsian Pacific region.\u00a0 I’m also a student at university
\nof Tokyo and councillor for ICANN.<\/p>\n

I will talk more to represent to you perspective and
\nI’m not going in describing internet penetration, but
\nI am not interested about the usage, which is dependent
\nto which is as available as internet access.<\/p>\n

First, I’m glad to see that governments like
\nHong Kong focus on children and try to help family with
\nits —<\/p>\n

It’s really similar to experience in Tunisia, when
\nthe government provide with the so-called family PC and
\nstudent laptop.\u00a0 Also provide regular discount and
\ndecrease on internet fees and also try to extend the DSN
\ncoverage.<\/p>\n

But I am also surprised that we don’t talk about
\nyouth in general, but just to focus in children.<\/p>\n

I also agree that educating user is important, also
\nlike providing infrastructure and access, but without
\nfollow up on capacity building and how we can use
\ninternet, it’s not enough especially for adults.<\/p>\n

I’m not really talking about youth for this aspect.<\/p>\n

Youth are really key player for helping the adults
\nto learn about internet usage.\u00a0 Even if I’m not fan of
\nconcept of digital natives, which don’t encourage
\ndifferences that may exist in and in particular, in
\ndeveloping countries.<\/p>\n

But I think that digital native show that youth are
\nadapting internet access to their needs and they make
\ntheir own usage of internet.<\/p>\n

So as I talked about digital and youth, to take
\na due in addition example, even if it is not from Asia,
\nbut it’s an African country.<\/p>\n

Youth represent majority of user of social networks,
\nlike Facebook.\u00a0 We are more than 1 million users which
\nrepresent a third of internet user in Tunisia, for
\na country of 10 million, so it’s really a huge number
\nand even Tunisia is in the top of user Facebook user for
\nMiddle East and North Africa region.<\/p>\n

Such usage become a key element for social and
\ncultural event and even for civil and political
\nactivities.<\/p>\n

Why we observe such evolution in Tunisia, especially
\nafter the large deployment of DSL in 2005, with regular
\ndecrease of internet fees and then we have now 200,000
\nhouseholds which access through DSL connection.<\/p>\n

Youth took advantage of that since the beginning.<\/p>\n

Now the new change I think that will happen with
\nmobile internet through 3G, which just started in
\nTunisia last April.\u00a0 I’ll really new project and it will
\nchange again the usage of internet from the perspective
\nof young users.<\/p>\n

Finally, to finish, I am really confident that youth
\nare able to develop their own usage of internet and we
\ndon’t need to be worried for them or we to educate them
\nhow to use internet in a safe way.\u00a0 Because youth see
\ninternet in terms of opportunities when their parents
\nunfortunate see it in terms of its.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you, Rafik.\u00a0 We have Sharil, Christine
\nand we’ll end in Markus.<\/p>\n

>> Dato Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi:\u00a0 Mine is a direct response to
\na colleague from Cambodia and Laos, they were asking
\nabout basic access props just sharing some knowledge
\nthat I’m aware of, there is two things.\u00a0 One is actually
\nthe — I have been involved in some work, many, many
\nyears, ago, with the World Bank and Asian Development
\nBank, about getting things like spectrum policies and
\nregulatory policies in place.\u00a0 That’s one of the first
\nthings that usually investors will look at before they
\ndecide whether they want to invest in a particular
\ncountry.<\/p>\n

If you’re interested in that, you can sort of see me
\nlater and then we can have a chat about that.<\/p>\n

No. 2, following on from that, there are some funds
\navailable from I believe the World Bank, which I do used
\nto work with, at some point, which will at least assist
\nin terms of building some capacity, maybe for a couple
\nof trial projects, you know, for access and
\nconnectivity.\u00a0 Because what they have been doing is that
\nthey have moved now from funding for bridges, roads and
\npower towards communications, so that’s just for
\ninformation.\u00a0 If someone else has some other
\ninformation, that’s useful, please.\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Christine Runnegar:\u00a0 I would just like to commend the
\ngovernmental efforts to close the digital divide, but
\nI wanted to emphasise the importance of community based
\nprojects with this target.\u00a0 I had a slide up earlier in
\nmy presentation, but unfortunate there wasn’t sufficient
\ntime to go through each of the five projects, these were
\nprojects that were developed by people within the
\ncommunity identifying what the digital divide was, what
\nthey needed to do to fix it, put forward some projects
\napplied for grants through our community grants
\nprogramme.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Markus Kummer:\u00a0 Just a quick word on the discussion.<\/p>\n

More or less the same comment I made yesterday, when
\nI attended the youth camp, I was surprised then on the
\ndiscussion on the digital divide, I listened with
\ninterest and I noted that there was obviously a need to
\ndiscuss these issues in a multi-stakeholder context.<\/p>\n

In the same way, it came up today, the discussion
\nturned away from the plumbing of access to the broader
\nsocial developmental context.<\/p>\n

Of course, these points are all very valid and this
\nwas all about that, about bridging the digital divide
\nand Geneva documents already, they greatly noticed that
\ntechnology is not an end in itself, but should be here
\nfurther to people’s centre development and however, the
\npoint I’m making is the IGF carefully shied away from
\nthese issues for the very simple reason that this is not
\npart of the IGF mandate.\u00a0 There are other institutions,
\nother forums dealing with this.\u00a0 The whole follow up is
\nprecisely about this.<\/p>\n

There is the ITU is the main agency in implementing
\nwhich has the main task of narrowing the digital divide.<\/p>\n

The same, there is the global alliance for ICT and
\ndevelopment.\u00a0 They are also mainly here for what is
\nknown as jargon ICT for development.\u00a0 We have now
\nstarted talking about internet governance for
\ndevelopment, IG for D and this will be on the agenda on
\nthe Vilnius meeting, but this will not be about
\napplication or social services, it will more about about
\nhow the government’s aspect can be made development
\nfriendly.<\/p>\n

But we are at the beginning of this discussion, and
\nalso the definition.\u00a0 We have not advanced conceptually
\nvery far on this, but that just said, we have to be very
\ncareful in a global IGF context, governments don’t like
\nduplication and overlap and this will be also looked at
\nin the discussions in the general assembly when it comes
\nto renewing the mandate and I’m sure there will be
\nsomething in the resolution that will say the IGF should
\nbe careful not to engage in duplication and overlap.
\nThat’s fairly standard, but we have to respect that.<\/p>\n

Having said that, obviously, each region has its own
\nway of defining its own agenda and if the Asian Pacific
\nregion finds there is merit in having
\na multi-stakeholder discussion on these bridging the
\ndigital divide issues, maybe there is a vacuum there and
\nthere is no other forum, so be it, but I just wanted to
\nsay this to explain why we don’t take up this issues at
\nthe global level.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you, Markus.\u00a0 Obviously my time
\nkeeping is very bad, but I would guess that the priority
\nis given to having such a good gathering to say a few
\nmore words.<\/p>\n

Quickly, Paul and then Tony.\u00a0 I hope you bear with
\nme for just a little while longer.<\/p>\n

>> Paul Fung:\u00a0 I just want to answer one of the participants
\njust point out that open source software may help
\nbridging the digital divide that we have.<\/p>\n

I myself is doing I will next development.\u00a0 I love
\nopen source very much.\u00a0 But actually, I spend the last
\nsix months trying to find out in open source software is
\nreally helping on all aspects to improve information and
\nastonishingly I found a paper from a university in Italy
\nwhich is called open source versus closed source
\nsoftware.\u00a0 Public policy in the software market.<\/p>\n

It is by a professor in Italy.<\/p>\n

This paper points to a very interesting conclusion,
\nthat by mandating that forcing the public to use open
\nsource software by a government is actually decreasing
\nthe level of social welfare and the only solution by
\na mathematical model and this is something that persuade
\nme that only an information campaign and self-adoption
\nof open source software is actually increasing the
\nsocial welfare.\u00a0 So I actually recommend if you have
\ntime, please go to that paper called open source versus
\nclosed source software, pull policy in the software
\nmarket and try to look into the logic, which is very
\nfunny and actually, giving some insight on how the
\ngovernment policy is affecting the market.<\/p>\n

One point just to notice is if the government is
\nmandating forcing people to use open source software,
\nthe social welfare level decrease because of the
\ndecrease of choice on the public, which is part of the
\nfreedom.<\/p>\n

Actually, we have to take care, if we are forcing
\npeople to use open source software, actually are we
\ndoing bad things?\u00a0 Please take care.<\/p>\n

>> Tony Wong:\u00a0 Luckily, the Hong Kong Government is taking
\na pragmatic approach, in terms of choosing what kind of
\nsource and we just choose the source that fit for the
\npurpose.<\/p>\n

Anyway, thanks for Edmon for giving me a bit of time
\nto share a bit more about the Hong Kong experience, when
\nhearing people around the world and in particular Asian
\nPacific region talking about their comments.<\/p>\n

I want to echo a little bit about Michael and the
\nJapanese colleagues say about what is the point of
\ngetting hundred per cent for the sake of getting access
\nin the Hong Kong situation is probably on one hand is
\na bit advantage in terms of the access or peptration
\nrate is already well above 70 per cent as a whole and
\nalso in terms of students, they are talking about 80,
\n90 per cent.<\/p>\n

But my sense is we need to find a business case, we
\nneed to find some benefits case in terms of getting the
\npenetration increased.\u00a0 We are now talking about for the
\nsake of enhancing the penetration for the sake of
\nachieving a hundred per cent or going back to the
\ninternet learning projects as an example, I would like
\nto share with you when we study the case with the
\nprimary and secondary school.<\/p>\n

Imagine you are a teacher facing a class of junior
\nsecondary school and when you want to introduce another
\nnew teaching methods, new ideas and also encouraging
\nyour students to go on-line to search for their own
\nanswer, to find things, to challenge the information on
\nthe internet, but all of a sudden, a couple of little
\nhands raise up and saying that I can’t get access.
\nI don’t have a computer.\u00a0 I don’t have internet at home.
\nOr my parents don’t allow me to do that.<\/p>\n

Then all that kind of E learning or advanced way or
\ninternet learning can’t take flight.\u00a0 It take only just
\none, that little student, not being able to get on-line.
\nSo at that example, we need hundred per cent.\u00a0 So that
\nis primarily the motive of why the government is taking
\nthat bold step of making the commitment of ensuring all
\nthe students in Hong Kong will be able to or not being
\nstopped by getting access to internet for learning
\npurpose.<\/p>\n

That is some of the examples that I want to share.<\/p>\n

The other thing is the district cyber centre
\nexperience I want to echo the Indian colleague’s
\nsuggestion.\u00a0 And that through based on our example, it
\nis really indeed a very good focal point, not only to
\ngather those underprivileged group penetrating through
\nour district networks, to group them together, to give
\nthem training, give them support and give them access
\nfacilities, it also gather a huge potential of
\nnegotiation and bargaining power, both in terms of
\nsecuring brand name sponsorship from company like
\nMicrosoft, which Microsoft give the project a very
\nsubstantial amount of support and also the broadband
\ninternet companies, but also in terms of aggregating the
\npurchasing power of those centres, when they are talking
\nabout enhancing their equipment, buying the software and
\nhardware in terms of improving their training, that kind
\nof aggregation, that kind of network of support centres
\napproach would probably help aggregating the purchasing
\npower of the NGOs across the districts.<\/p>\n

So this is something I want to share with the
\ncolleagues.<\/p>\n

>> Edmon Chung:\u00a0 Thank you Tony and with that, I will wrap
\nthe session and a round of applause to distinguished
\nguests on the panel.<\/p>\n

That will be the end of the first day of the round
\ntable.<\/p>\n

Just a housekeeping note.\u00a0 We have a round table
\ndinner tonight, but if you haven’t got your ticket, you
\nhave to get one from the registration disk.\u00a0 We have
\npeople bringing guests to the restaurant, which we can
\nwalk to.\u00a0 We can start going now.\u00a0 Also, there will be
\nsome help for those who are staying at the meridian,
\nplease feel free to go back to your room, put down your
\nstuff and we’ll have people taking people from the lobby
\nof the meridian to the wine owe clock, which is where we
\nare having dinner tonight.<\/p>\n

6.30.\u00a0 If you are going back to the meridian, we’ll
\nmeet you at the lobby at around 6.30.\u00a0 We’ll have
\na people just generally around there.<\/p>\n

So erase 6.30.\u00a0 Just take your time, we’ll have
\npeople at the lobby waiting for you and take different
\npeople at different times from the hotel.<\/p>\n

But people who are going directly will have people
\nbringing you to the venue right away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Access: The Digital Divide in Asia” ________________________________________________________________________ REAL TIME TRANSCRIPT: Access: The Digital Divide in Asia APrIGF 16:00-17:30, Tuesday 15 June 2010 Hong Kong DISCLAIMER: Due to the inherent difficulties in capturing a live speaker’s words, it is possible this realtime transcript may contain errors and mistranslations. An edited version of the realtime transcript which … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “APrIGF Roundtable – June 15th, 2010: Session 4”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-316","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/event.rigf.asia\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/event.rigf.asia\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/event.rigf.asia\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/event.rigf.asia\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/event.rigf.asia\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/event.rigf.asia\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":552,"href":"https:\/\/event.rigf.asia\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/316\/revisions\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/event.rigf.asia\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}