For Tuesday Jan. 20, read Chapter 2 of 
the Global Information Technology Report (pp. 23-55)
"Global Diffusion of ICT"

1.  The chapter opens with the statement, "... Everyone
should be able to enjoy access to information and communications
networks."  What can we bring from chapter 1 to help support
this statement?  Can you think of a possible rebuttal to this
statement?

2.  What does "bridging the digital divide" mean?  Do you think
this is an accurate way of expressing the goal advanced in 
this chapter?  In other words, how might this catch-phrase be
misleading or vague?

3.  What limitation is there to using data from the International
Telecommunication Union to assess the usage of information &
communication networks around the world?

4.  Early in the chapter we see 8 findings of the data, and
these are discussed on pages 25-32.  Which of these did you find 
surprising?  For example, what do you find most significant in
each of the Tables 2 through 9?

5.  Based on the figures in Table 8, if we want to greatly
increase the number of people with Internet access, what seems
the most effective way to do this?

6.  Looking at Table 9 (as well as Part II of the chapter), 
what differences do you see beweeen:
- Europe and North America?  
- East and South Asia
- North and Subsaharan Africa?
- Caribbean and Latin America?

7.  Comment on the network penetration in the following countries:
- Russia compared to the rest of Europe, 
- China versus Japan and South Korea
- Australia and Canada (may help to glance at pp. 116, 125) 

8.  The chapter points out that Subsaharan Africa generally 
suffers from low penetration of network technologies.  Which
African country or countries appear to be models for improvement?

9.  What point is the author making in Box 3 on page 50?

10.  The chapter concludes with a list of what the author calls
imperatives and implications.  Let's look at each one.
Some of these are less obvious - please explain the ones that
you think are not immediately clear.  Also, feel free to critique
any of these:
- "craft the right framework"
- "developing human capacity"
- "governments make it a priority"
- "international trade plays a very important role"

- "a large market that is yet to be connected"
- "technologies and applications other than what is available today"
- "study demand and take-up patterns"
- "we barely begun to tap the possibilities of the current network"

11.  If you were a head of state or an MP in some country,
what advice should you take away from this chapter?