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Clotilde Fonseca Fundación Omar Dengo Costa Rica Low bandwidth High bandwidth 4 min. 46 sec.

Clotilde Fonseca

Transcript:

“Well, this year it’s working with technology and development and very particularly in my country and traveling around. I have found certain misconceptions that are present in many experts and country leaders and even agencies.

“Initially, at the very beginning, when these technologies started to be introduced into developing countries, there was a view that they were too expensive and too difficult to bring to social programs. And therefore there was a view of development – a linear view of development – which generally implied that these technologies could not be brought to social programs until countries had reached a certain level of development themselves.

“So, very frequently, the tremendous potential of digital technologies was lost because of this expectation that everything had to be in place at a certain level before you could introduce them.

“Then we went into practically the opposite, from a very cautious approach that only generally the authorized small pilot projects so that poor countries could prove through specific data that were not requested from other countries, other more developed countries.

“Then we moved into a very different conception -- and in my view, also a misconception -- which implied bringing technology massively and viewing this introduction of technology as installing infrastructure and providing content. And believing that this was going to be a magic solution to the problems of development.

“I have even heard people say that poverty is going to go away because now we have information for the poor or that ignorance is no longer going to be a problem because we have an international world library through the Internet.

“So, the problem with these two misconceptions, which are very pervasive and present in different ways, is that they do not focus on the potential that digital technologies have to develop capacities, to empower people to really to take charge of their own personal future. And at the same time to make a productive contribution.”

Question: “Why have these mistakes been made?”

“Well, I think that very frequently there is lack of knowledge of the potential that in many poor communities that individuals have, and how these can be dealt with through these technologies to develop those potentials.”

Question: “In order to see the benefits accrue to the poor of digital technology, new technology, what do you think is the task?”

“Well, first of all, there’s got to be a better understanding of these technologies. Part of the problem, like McLuhan once said, is that we keep looking at the future through the rear-view mirror. And many of the people making the decisions in the developing world are looking at these technologies almost as broadcasting technologies to distribute information.

“I have a great problem using the term “information and communication technologies” – ICTs – and the reason is very simple: the emphasis that is placed on the “I” of the information makes most leaders, and many leaders, and many experts think of them as information technologies. And digital technologies are much more than information technologies.

“They are about creating, they are about exchanging, they are about communicating. And the skills you need to deal with these technologies in productive and competitive ways are skills – some of them technical – but many of them, most of them intellectual, cognitive, creative.

“They have to do with the development of the individual in a more integral way, in developing the individual’s capacity and the community’s capacities. They are not just about information. And that is the worst of the misconceptions that we are facing.”

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