ICT for Sustainable Development

1. The Role of ICT in Sustainable DevelopmentRaj ReddyAug 29, 2002www.rr.cs.cmu.eduJohannesburg Summit Presentation

2. The Vision • Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is not the cure-all to the world’s problems. But it can be a powerful tool to facilitate and enable affordable solutions to • Economic Development • Economic growth • Job creation • Low-cost access to goods and services • Societal Development: Empowering the Individual • Improved literacy • Reduced mortality such as U5MR • Access to safe water (as a result of monitoring) • Free flow of information (supports democratization) • Increased transparency • Environment Protection • Pollution monitoring, diagnosis and elimination • Clean air, clean water, clean energy, etc. • Logistic Support for Disaster recovery • Oil spills, e.g., Exxon Valdez • Indonesian fires • Chernobyl accident

3. Is ICT Necessary? • ICT cannot improve the quality of life but can facilitate access that can improve the quality of life such as • Providing access to entertainment • Providing access to education and life-long learning • ICT cannot make you literate but can enable learning independent of age and physical limitations • Providing access to all human knowledge anytime anywhere • Access any book, magazine, newspaper, music, or video regardless of language by anyone • Universal Library video • The Million Book Digital Library project of China, India and US

5. Is ICT Necessary? (cont) • ICT cannot feed the poor but can enable wealth creation and expense reduction • through applications such as price discovery, creating export opportunities, and job creation • ICT cannot cure the sick but can provide a link to doctors and treatment • using telemedicine • ICT cannot save the environment but can help to monitor it • and diagnose and provide options to policy makers • eventually can be linked to appropriate technologically-controlled remediation approaches as well

6. Necessary Conditions for Sustainable ICT • Sustainability has been traditionally linked to environmental sustainability • Sustainability of ICT is also essential • To achieve sustainable ubiquitous use of ICT, it must be accessible and affordable • ICT can not be deployed as charity • Even an illiterate farmer must desire a TVPCR and be willing to pay for it • ICT must also create a clear value proposition • would you rather spend the money on food?

7. Accessible ICT? • Connectivity within a walking distance • Costing less than cup of coffee per day • Language divide • Usable in any language • Literacy divide • Permitting communication using speech • Recognition and synthesis

8. Affordable ICT? • If ICT is to achieve pervasive presence in developing economies, it should be affordable • A TVPCR at the same price as the current TV set • The value proposition should be self evident • It should be more than a TV for entertainment • Any movie anytime, interactive entertainment, massive multiplayer games • More than a cell phone for communication • IP phone with no long distance charges, voice email, video email • Better than a teacher in a class room for learning and education • A teacher for every learner • Better than a local expert for rapid and reliable access to knowledge and knowhow • Easy to use, easy to learn, and affordable

9. Trustable ICT? • Trusted sources of information--local and global • prices of crops at regional markets • civic obligations (e.g. tax information, filing deadlines) • news • Anonymity guaranteed where needed and appropriate • requesting information about a potentially communicable disease • On-line assets and records as safe, anonymous, and accessible as the best hiding place in your house!

10. What should the Scientific Community do? • Get the IT firms to see the developing economies as huge markets - not as charity • Develop affordable low cost systems and software • Support and codesign of low cost options • Dependable designs: 6 sigma reliability • Radically simpler software and user interfaces • Low cost, easily deployed and integrated sensors • Develop solutions that support low levels of literacy and languages of developing economies • Support of R and D for orphan languages • Develop power without the power gird • E.g. Solar, biomass and crank power options • Develop technologies for connectivity without telephony • Explore low cost connectivity using satellite and wireless

11. What can Each Nation do? • Supportive national policies for ICT from developing economies • Provide “Free Broadband Internet”. It is only about 1% of the cost of building roads • Immediately eliminate exorbitant prices for connectivity from PTT monopolies • Eliminate and/or radically reduce taxation on ICT • Develop multilingual software tools • Support and incubate local entrepreneurs solving local problems

12. What can the UN do? • Provide free access to knowledge and knowhow • Create a center that can provide answers to problems faced by national, metropolitan and rural communities using ICT • The center can have access to world class experts from TWAS and other academies who can provide timely inputs to pressing problems • Create a World Knowledge Bank which acquires intellectual property rights from owners and makes them available to developing economies at affordable costs • Owners of IPR get little revenue and profit at present from developing economies • And many of them would make available their IPR under appropriate safeguards for a lower fee or royalty