Corporate power and the developing world

‘ 1 % of Indians and 5% of Brazilians have internet access compared with more than 60 % access in the developed world’ This startling and rather frightening fact highlights quite clearly the situation the world is facing. It reminds the reader of the constant and overpowering pressure for the developing world to enter the information revolution and begin to build an empire of highly literate and ICT skilled individuals. Obviously the need for change is overwhelming at this moment in time. It is felt by many across the academic scale that the developing world is simply unable to compete with other developed countries and their expectations and requirements. ‘ Developing countries … face new barriers and the risk of not just being marginalized but completely bypassed … the World Wide Web or Internet has emerged as an invisible barrier embracing the connected and silently excluding the rest.’ There can be no dispute that the facilities and services that are available to these unfortunate countries are way below the standards the developed world is accustomed to. The evidence for this has been collated by the World Resource Institute in Washington , which found that more than four billion people worldwide remain untouched by the IT revolution. A pertinent example is the waiting time for a business phone in Ghana is over 5 years and that positive alteration’s or developments are not expected in the upcoming years. When considering the above evidence one is able to form the opinion that before people are trained to become ICT skilled they must first have access to the related information and the technology on which they are to be trained. In conclusion, this situation can be described as a ‘ vicious circle’ with no possible break in the flow insight.