It's one of those goofy stories that the BBC always seems to have on its sidebar so that I can read those before my brain warms up in the morning, but this one caught my attention because of the piss-poor state of internet penetration in Africa. internetworldstats.com has (no shit) data on internet usage worldwide, and the level of net access and use in Africa - and specifically Sub-Saharan Africa - is woeful.
I would imagine that for many people, basic amenities and human security are significantly more important than reliable internet access - that I understand. That being said, the easiest means to participate in economic and social life worldwide has got to be a computer with a reliable internet connection. According to the BBC article,
South Africa is one of the countries hoping to benefit from three new fibre optic cables being laid around the African continent to improve internet connections.
When I was still in high school, I volunteered with a project that sent computers and computer equipment, along with other education materials, to a youth community centre in Kinshasa. It's a pretty big city, so I imagine that broadband access is more or less reliable, if not speedy. Still, given the rate at which technology becomes "obsolete" to our Western points of view, and the number of projects of which I've heard that send second-hand computer equipment to schools and community centres in the developing world - not to mention the continued desire to create something like the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project, it seems to me as though making an investment in broadband cable as part of ongoing economic development projects would be a worthwhile endeavor.
Comments? Or is this post just really patronizing in a way that I definitely did not intend it to be?
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