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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Cecilia Ergueta

Cecilia Ergueta

The Digital Divide: Closing the Gap between Access and Innovation in Latin America - COHA - 0 views

  • With sustained growth blessing the region, Latin America found itself with an expansive business sector and a demanding public sector, all looking to technology for answers to big social issue
  • Most Latin American nations could be described as straddling the gap of the digital divide in a sustained balancing act.
  • “digital divide” has become shorthand for any gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas with regards to both their opportunities and access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs
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  • the digital divide in Latin America, even in an international context, always has been about more than just access to the Internet, or a computer.
  • a big majority of poorer areas within countries—the periphery of the periphery—continue to live in the dark, some with the equipment (machinery) but not the tools (knowledge) to promote  the same socioeconomic empowerment of their richer counterparts
  • a majority of the targeted populations have not become integrated like their more affluent neighbors
  • a problem of knowledge and sustainable innovation
  • over the last 10 years, the digital divide has been shrinking in terms of accessibility based on the numbers of fixed phone lines, mobile subscribers, and Internet users around the world.
  • Few reports can be found focusing on specific countries within the region, leading most international analysts to base their generalizations based on the experience on similar groups of countries
  • Unprecedented economic growth now gives Latin America the opportunity to address some of its most pressing need
  • opportunities in Latin America for sales growth are considered massive, especially for equipment manufacturers and as well as for telecom services providers
  • government-sponsored programs focus mostly on expanding access
  • computer ownership continues to rise with unprecedented speed, even if Internet access proliferation follows at much reduced speed.
  • policy initiatives have remained access-obsessed without evolving to tackle some of the effects of persistent inequality characteristic of the region
  • Dr. Sanabria successfully managed to implement ICTs to give medical advice to remote, marginalized communities
  • an understanding of how technology penetration works can, with some innovation, breed sustainable and meaningful development
  • the work of Fundación Proyecto Maniapure and other organizations like it are having a more lasting impact in alleviating poverty, health deficits, and inequality, than perhaps some nationally sponsored projects that are bringing more technology to communities, but are not quite putting it to its full possible use.
Cecilia Ergueta

How digital connectivity is transforming Latin America | World Economic Forum - 0 views

  • 90% percent of the region is covered by mobile broadband
  • only about 50% of those people are “connected” and online
  • three primary barriers to internet use: a lack of locally-relevant content, a lack of digital skills and limited affordability among segments of the population.
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  • there is a direct correlation between internet and the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in creating jobs and reducing poverty
  • GSMA’s study found a lack of local content as the most important factor for a lack of connectivity – more than affordability or coverage – in most of Latin America
  • They are unaware of how much research, data, health information and other tools can be accessed online
Cecilia Ergueta

The Internet of Things: The Next Digital Divide for Latin America? : World : Latin Post - 0 views

  • Latin America is currently poised to fall behind in the next big evolution of the Internet.
  • last year Latin America as a whole grew in IP traffic by 25 percent, with traffic growth for the mobile Internet at an incredible 87 percent.
  • things are not looking as bright for the growth of the Internet of Things there.
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  • Fixed broadband and mobile Internet (measured by both adoption and speed) and overall data traffic in Latin America are all projected to grow,
  • Latin America is closing the gap, especially in mobile, with the rest of the developed world and nearly 400 million people will be connected in the near future.
  • Internet penetration by percentage of the population across all of Latin America is at least over 50 percent by now, which is higher than the world average
  • an emerging digital divide in the next phase of the Internet, ironically hidden by Latin America's current booming adoption of the consumer Internet.
  • Latin America isn't expected to make much progress over the near-term in the number of connected devices, especially of the M2M-variety.
  • But in Latin America, leading countries like Brazil and Mexico are expected to reach 32 percent by that year, falling behind the global average by about the same amount that the region as a whole currently surpasses global average Internet penetration today.
  • Then imagine 50 billion objects being connected together, from consumer goods to manufacturing systems, to appliances, healthcare systems, infrastructure, mass and personal transportation -- and the list goes on and on. In the future, IoT is what most of the Internet will be, and anyone left behind will be at a huge disadvantage
Cecilia Ergueta

Wife and Running Mate: A Real-Life 'House of Cards' in Nicaragua - The New York Times - 0 views

  • She will be on the Nov. 6 ballot to become vice president.Her running mate? Her husband, President Daniel Orteg
  • “It’s not that she has as many followers as her husband — she has more,”
  • government was widely criticized for taking bolder steps to secure Mr. Ortega’s power, raising troubling questions about the state of Nicaragua’s young democracy.
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  • Now the Ortegas and their allies control fuel companies, television stations and public construction projects.
  • She went public with rape accusations in 1998. But her mother, who has had seven children with Mr. Ortega as well, stood by him.Joined by Mr. Ortega and their adult children, Ms. Murillo held a news conference calling her eldest daughter a liar who suffered from psychological problems.
  • her loyalty to Mr. Ortega and her public defense of him were rewarded in the influence she has gained across the country.
  • war raged in Nicaragua as the victorious Sandinista revolutionaries fought insurgents known as the contras, who were backed by the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Ortega officially became president in 1984 and left office in 1990, when Nicaragua took steps toward peace.
  • The National Assembly and the courts were stacked with allies. The law was changed so that Mr. Ortega could run indefinitely.
  • Supreme Court banished a leading opposition figure from his own party, the Liberal Independent Party, preventing him from becoming an opponent in the November election.
  • even more power will be consolidated in the Ortega family.
  • “If a private company does not allow a married couple to work together, how is that allowed for a nation?”
  • “This is a movie we already saw, and we know how it ends,” said Mr. Ramírez, the former vice president. “It ends badly.”
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    Here's a good article on the political issues in Nicaragua right now!
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