2008 Trends in Crossing the Digital Divide

The Digital Divide that President Clinton talked aboutThe ability of computer software to translate
during his term never materialized, most of the 300languages is helping immensely in crossing barriers due
plus countries of the World do have Internet Accessto language, race, culture and geographic location.
of some type. This is a good thing and it means thatMuch of this technology came about thanks to the
humans have risen to the occasion and bridged theneeds of the Military and the United Nations in crossing
perceived gap between nations of the world; rich andcultural divides. Now these innovations have prevented
poor.the digital divide.
The OLPC (one laptop per child) project is making theToday over 75% of Americans are on the Internet
Internet Accessible to children of many third worldand China over 25% and growing steadily. In fact,
nations and although that project is slow out of thethere are more Chinese than Americans online now
gate it is working and will continue to grow. Alreadyand since they have 1.3 Billion people it appears no
we see kids collaborating who live on other continents.other nation can ever catch them. Whereas, we in
Kids in Central and South America are communicatingAmerica have crossed the digital divide and are helping
with kids in Asia, Indonesia, Australia, North Americathe World cross it too, there are other nations busily
and Europe. Imagine that, a world united thanks to theworking to insure that their citizens are not left without
children?the power Internet information source. Think on this.