Digital Divide Network: Andy Carvin

Andy Carvin is the Director of the Digital Divide Network, a project of the Center for Media and Community in the USA. He is also author of the blog 'Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth'. As part of our digital divide work in ITGS we have spent some time exploring global issues and possible solutions to do with the divide. Andy is an enternationally renowned speaker about this exact topic.

I challenge you this week to listen to the podcast of Andy giving the keynote speech at the University of Missouri Scholarly Communications Conference, "Open Content vs Closed Doors". (16MB, about 1 hour in length) Also Andy has provided a PowerPoint show to go with this speech.

Andy describes the digital divide as the gap that exists between populations in terms of Access, Basic Literacy Skills and Content (ABC's), gives statistics to do with the divide in the USA and discusses the development of Web 2.0 where the web has become a 'read and write' medium where all can contribute content. He also discusses copyright and creative commons licences, Wiki's and Wikipedia.

Respond to this blog posting with your comments about Andy's speech.
What is one important issue that Andy raises in terms of the digital divide? How does this same issue apply globally?