A
summit for whom ?
The World Summit on the Information Society is taking place in Geneva
from 10 to 12 December. Its aim is to reduce the digital divide
between the worlds richest and poorest people.
G, 14 years old, has worked in a factory for the last three years.
He makes shoes on a production line. He earns 30 cents per day. It is
hardly enough to buy food and to pay a share of the rent for the room
he shares with his six brothers and sisters. If he stopped buying food
and lived on the street, he would still need between 25 and 30 years
to buy himself a computer.
Y, 11 years old, walks 18 kilometres a day to fetch water. She helps
her mother and her aunts to prepare meals. She does not know how to
read or write. She has no idea what the Internet is.
S, 8 years old, lives in the street. Every day he begs in order to
feed himself. He does not know how to read or write either. He watches
television through shop windows. The problem is that there is no sound.
It doesnt really matter, as it is the only way that he gets to
watch football matches. If he begged for 38 years, he would earn
the equivalent of a television set.
B, 48 years old, writes computer software. Last year, he earned 3 billion
dollars. It would take more than 4 million years for G, Y and S to get
such an amount together.
There are four to five billion people in the world who will never have
a computer.
Happy Christmas!
Editor-in-Chief, Jean Michel
Jakobowicz