Unwiring the Internet in Costa Rica

Costa Rica has long been known for its coffee, and indeed roasted beans are the single biggest export of this mountainous country in Central America. But something new is also brewing: the Internet is taking hold.

Courtesy of ECE

Strong political actors have played a key role in advancing and promoting the digital networks. This June, the country's President Miguel Rodriguez launched a free e-mail service and free limited Internet access for all Costa Ricans -- a joint venture of the State-owned phone company and the national mail service with various private companies. Coming on the heels of the country's effort to install computer laboratories in all its public high schools by 1998, this latest decision is a step further towards tying the general population into the Internet. Mr. Rodriguez's predecessor as President, José María Figueres, is also working on information technologies for his country. Now head of the Costa Rican Foundation for Sustainable Development, he helped introduce mobile multi-media units called LINCOS. These "little intelligent communities" were developed in collaboration with the Media Laboratories of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

LINCOS units can be taken anywhere -- mountain, jungle or village -- and make web-browsing, telephony and e-mail available even in the most remote spot. Equipped with their own generators, these units need neither external energy nor communication cables; they connect directly via satellite. The shape of a LINCOS unit is a 20-foot shipping container, but once set up at its destination, a futuristic tension structure surrounds it, providing shadow and sufficient darkness for a small built-in movie theater. At first, LINCOS are used as digital town centres in rural mountain villages and as computer labs for grammar and high school students. When the project's pilot stage is over, the current price of $70,000 is expected to significantly decrease. If it proves successful and reliable in Costa Rica, this technology could become another big export item in the future.

Mali's Centres of Information

Speaking at the High-Level Segment of the Economic and Social Council, Alpha Oumar Konaré, President of Mali, said that Africans understood that information and communication technologies were a condition for freedom in the modern world. He stressed that the Internet was an unprecedented revolution that allowed the continent to be present without an intermediary. In his own country, President Konaré has promoted Internet use since taking office in 1993, particularly through private-sector development. He works together with UN agencies and other organizations to reduce a host of barriers to open connectivity.

By early 1998, Mali had four private-sector Internet service providers serving about 1,000 accounts -- and the number is growing daily. Mali is working hard to provide Internet service in rural areas. However, as a developing country, it faces a number of challenging problems: an unreliable telephone system, low literacy, exorbitant costs for telephone calls, customs duties on computers, and a relative lack of equipment and trained technical staff in the schools. Primary education still only reaches 50% of Mali's children at the primary-school level and is even less for girls (40%), while literacy is only 27% and much less for women (15%).

One project that aims to overcome the lack of information and communication facilities in the 701 communes is the setting-up of telecentres, which are of a pilot character for Africa.

A project of the International Telecommunication Union, together with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the national organization Sotelma (Société des Télécommunications du Mali), the first multi-purpose community centre -- Télécentre Communautaire Polyvalent TCP -- was established in December 1998. The centre, located in Timbuktu, aims to enhance the development of rural areas by providing such communication and information facilities as phone, fax, computers, Internet, photocopiers and audio-visual equipment for a wide range of community uses, including the improvement of governance and public services. In the long run, the telecentre will provide distance learning, tele-medicine and research facilities.

As part of the start-up activities, a workshop was organized in Timbuktu in May 1998 to develop training plans for the various user groups. Some 40 representatives, consisting of local Malian partners and other user groups, participated.

What Mali expects from the wealthy countries is "that they help us develop an infrastructure as cheaply as possible, while taking local conditions into account", Ibrahima N'Diaye, the Mayor of Mali's capital Bamako, told the UNESCO Courier. "We're not asking for hand-outs. If they decide to invest, they have everything to gain, especially in economies of scale. Ninety-eight per cent of the world's population is not on-line yet -- that's billions of people. However poor they are, they represent an incredible market."

Estonia's 'Tiger Leap'

Speaking of information and communication technology (ICT) in developing countries, many hope that these countries might leap-frog the stages of development. Estonia is taking tiger-leaps instead.

UNDP Photo

The Estonian "Tiger Leap" is a national target programme launched by the Ministry of Education of Estonia, with the objective to modernize the educational system in the country by introducing information and communication technology. It acknowledges the right of every citizen to network access, and rests on the belief that the path to the future lies on the information superhighway. Initiated by Estonia's President Lennart Merti and sponsored in part by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Tiger Leap is based on the cooperation between schools, universities, private enterprises and public institutions.

Since its launch in February 1996, the Tiger Leap project has been trying to decrease the differences in education between the capital city and other parts of Estonia, and to give the children living on small islands equal chances to obtain more knowledge. It builds up structures for distance learning and continuous learning for teachers and students. Estonian teachers are provided with elementary computer skills and guided to use educational software for teaching languages or sciences.

In accordance with the Tiger Leap Foundation's aim to assist the counties in developing the information technology infrastructure, almost all schools were supplied with computers in 1997 and one fourth of the total number of teachers was trained. In December 1999, there has been, on average, one computer for every 28 students in Estonia, bringing its slogan "one computer for every 20 pupils" into reach. More than half of the total number of teachers has graduated from the Tiger Leap's beginner course; 180 Estonian schools have on-line Internet connections; 218 schools are using dial-up Internet services; and 360 schools use e-mail services.

Through its Tiger Tour Roadshow project, the Foundation tries to introduce the larger population to the new technologies in an effort to overcome the reservations people often have in connection with ICT. In total, more than 50,000 people have acquired new skills and knowledge over the two years of the Tiger Tour. "The Tiger Leap programme is not simply about surfing the Internet", says UNDP's Lantz-de Bernardis. "It's about access to information. It's about democracy."

Malaysia Sets the Internet Rolling

In Malaysia, people do not go to the Internet, the Internet goes to them. The pilot project is an Internet-on-wheels called the Mobile Internet Unit (MIU), a cybercoach that goes around the non-mainstream schools in the country to conduct basic literacy programmes. These schools are mostly rural schools that lack both access to information and the opportunity to acquire ICT skills. Most children are fascinated by "e-learning in a bus". For many, it is the first time they touch a computer. Aside from allaying the children's fear of computers and raising their awareness of ICT, MIU staff also collects data and tries to assess the impact of ICT on the teaching and learning processes. The pilot project that started in August 1999 was developed by the Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP), an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme.

UNHCR Photo

APDIP assists Governments in 42 countries in using ICT to further social and economic development. Malaysia has an ambitious plan: by the year 2020, the East Asian country wants to turn into a fully developed industrial nation with a "knowledge society". With this vision in mind, the National Information Technology Council was established in 1994, as a think-tank to advise the Government on matters pertaining to the development of ICT.

The main challenge in Malaysia and in other developing countries is to create awareness about how these tools can assist economic and social development with Governments and citizens working alike in activities ranging from policy-making to infrastructure and training, and from hosting services to the implementation of networks and information systems.