Minding the Digital Divide

During our blogging and podcasting workshop last week I was surprised to learn that about a 3rd of those who attended the 2-day activity didn’t even have an email account. The hands-on session required them to create their own blogs on Blogger and signing up requires an email account for activation.

Vigan Workshop

So, we had to have them signed up for an email account first. That made things a little different from my perspective. Here I am trying to teach these college kids the power of blogging only to find out they haven’t been using the Internet that much. To me, having an active email account is the rite to passage to the world wide web.

This reminds us that only a tiny fraction of Filipinos have access to the internet. I guess the bigger challenge is for all Philippine schools from primary to tertiary have regular access to the internet and encourage *every* students to be familiar with it and use it. Only then can we make them see the benefits of being online and help close the gap of the ever-growing digital divide.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

7 Comments

noemi says:

18 years ago

More and more companies realize that Filipinos don’t have access to the internet. Smart BRO has this “internet cafe” package promo for sari-sari stores. I also heard about the barangay wifi package from another company. Soon, the country will have easy access to the benefits of the internet.
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marc says:

18 years ago

right now internet can be accessible from anywhere. the only problem is, Philippines is suffering from poverty. if you belong below the middleclass, which would spent a P20, food or internet?
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wites says:

18 years ago

it’s funny that we are advocating that all filipinos should use the internet, but here in the office only officers and upper management are allowed to have access and entitled to an email account.

i understand there’s a “productivity” issue, that’s why the company is hesitant to give access. but i think they can create protocols or procedures to regulate the use of the internet instead of scrapping it altogether.
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marc says:

18 years ago

but its really a good thing YUGA TECH is here to to provide every filipino about digital information thru the internet. :)
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mister says:

18 years ago

That’s why the Philippines is the text capital of the world. are we still?? Also, i believe most pinoy thinks of computer or internet a just way of playing games online.
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toots ople says:

18 years ago

yuga, a more astounding fact is how key government offices continue to ignore the use of e-mail as an internal communications tool. i think you’ll be surprised at the number of top executives in government that don’t own an email addy, much less rely on the Internet for substance that can be had at the speed of thought. much work to be done, in and out of government in bridging the digital divide!
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Phil Piper says:

18 years ago

Worry about internet access, most people don’t even have access to a telephone! There are no telephone wires more that 1 kilometer from towns. I live betwen Dasol and Infanta Pangasinan, there are no phone lines within 6 or 8 kilometers therefore no dialup internet. Smart Bro is a joke, you must be within 1 kilometer of a specially equipped Smart cellphone tower and have a special antenna to get it and then it costs more than PhP 1,000 per month. I have PLDT WeRoam and it costs more than PhP 10,000 to start and more than PhP 1,ooo per month.
If schools have no phone lines, they have no internet.

It will cost a lot of money to setup the Brgy wifi and there just are not enough customers. Most people here don’t have any use for the internet, they can’t even understand an ATM card and they don’t have PhP 30,000 for a computer plus they don’t have electricity.

You guys must all live in Manila and never travel out to the real Philippines.
Phil
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