Thank you very much Professor Bruck for the question regarding South Africa’s digital divide initiatives. South Africa’s approach to bridging the digital divide takes an integrated developmental approach with the participation of multi-stakeholders.
Firstly, South Africa has an information society and development programme aimed at increasing South Africa’s uptake and usage of information communication technologies by government and individuals. Accordingly, government has set-up a presidential priority project in the form of the Presidential National Commission (PNC) on Information Society and Development (ISAD) bringing together stakeholders to address the challenges of bridging the digital divide.
This programme involves the building of a wireless network to connect public centres and businesses in the signal coverage areas. Government has set-aside about R500 million for this initiative. The national digital repository I referred to earlier is a subset of this particular initiative which focuses on culture and heritage in our country. Furthermore, universal service obligations are imposed on electronic communication licensed providers (network and service operators) through the communications regulator Information Communication Authority of South Africa (Icasa).
With regards to training, the ISAD programme is also supported by various training initiatives in information and communications technology (ICT) skills in various fields, including broadcasting, content collation, network and programming, website development and content management. Such training programmes are provided by the National Electronics Media Institute (Nemisa) and technology universities such as the Tshwane University of Technology. Thousands of young people are trained every year. Our e-small, medium and micro enterprises (e-SMME) also focuses on training unemployed graduates to run ICT based businesses in a cooperative model.
Our government also supports building integrated centres such as Public information terminals, telecentres, multi-purpose community centres, community radio and community television.
Enquiries:
Fuad Hendricks
Cell: 082 478 2988
