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Digital empowerment - capital access & development
Contrary to popular belief that Information
Technology will be the great leveler, there has been no significant
achievement by IT to reduce the disparity between the rich
and poor nations to a greater extend. The anti-globalization
riots in Seattle, Genoa have brought into sharp perspective
the contradiction in perceptions of economic development of
the G7 nations with the non-G7 nations.
by Shiladitya Sunny Ghosh
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As some seer has said 'capital has no character',
indeed capital has no character at all. The capital of the
rich nations has gravitated towards economies like India,
China, Vietnam, Philippines et al nations. Whilst this has
contributed to thicker cash flows and bottom-lines of MNCs
-- it has made no significant contributions towards alleviation
of third world poverty, malnutrition and hunger.
The much hyped IT revolution has been a mirage
for most of the world’s have-nots too -- making disparities
even more clearly juxtaposed between the rich and poor, the
developed and the under-developed or developing.
Take for instance, the silicon satellite
town of Bangalore, where the best minds of India rub shoulder
to shoulder, thread to thread, cell to cell, manipulating
chromosome layers in genetic laboratories and software houses,
have ambitious plans to attract foreign capital to the city,
discarding the needs of the poor & widening urban/social
gaps of living standards. Pushing the light towards the darker
end -
In his recent studies the Peruvian economist
Hernando DeSoto -- warned about the problems of poverty &
held the mundane laws of the developing country responsible.
The rules that do not allow the "poor" & “deprived”
to formally legitimize their business, home, equipment, cultivation
land, machinery, permits – depriving them to function
in accordance to the standards of capitalist economy &
forging potential societies towards energy dump camps!
To our surprise, the size of these undocumented
assets far exceed the value of all the development projects
undertaken to date, but are they accessible to anyone?
Global outsourcing, a business strategy,
clearly driven by the strengths of IT infrastructure; is a
case in point. Vast numbers of lay-offs across the world in
companies have disenabled people. If Environment, Empowerment
and Employment are the key criterions to be considered for
human development then IT in itself may have detonated the
biggest social time bomb of our time.
Not only will it spar inequalities within
society; but it could bring the level of crime rate, anti-social
transactions at par with economic developments of IT in the
third world economy. An interview cited by Gopal, editor of
the largest selling Tamil Magazine 'Nakheeran' with Veerappan
relates to dozens of would be sandalwood smugglers; ready
to fight for their rights of water – food – social
discrimination & their father god, “AS HE STRICKS
AGAIN AND AGAIN” – Are we a bunch of Southern forest
intellectual inhabitants, aspiring to develop Silicon alleys?
True democratization needs to transcend beyond
information technology & information transfer, impacting
healthcare, utilities, transport and above all towards digital
rights. Take for instance, health care; which fairs to a major
indicator in the economic status of any nation, is appealing
to India, in the sense of miniscule section of the masses
getting access to the latest technology driven Medicare system.
How the un-powered Chinese “Barefoot Doctors” for
a few decades, have managed to medicate patients & townships
with virtually no facilities & superstitious beliefs,
is a secret of its own.
“When there are no Safety Nets in the
economic order of third world economies, it is a veritable
suicide to initiate first world prescriptions.” as stated
by the Noble Laureate, Prof. Amartya Sen -- is a true concern
of its own. Is increased, sustained & non-democratic use
of IT -- one such prescription of its own?
The call of ‘TIME’ ordains –
Neither, Information Technology nor Capital access can alone
squeeze the bottom less chasm between the haves and have-nots.
This ‘WILL’, will be a harmony of new technology-driven
companies, tech-savvy managers, and ministers sophisticated
to the possibilities of IT, joined by social entrepreneurs,
anti-social activist and NGO teams – breathing Wisdom
Management, & mobilizing knowledge Management towards
equal rights.
Shiladitya Sunny Ghosh
Shiladitya Sunny Ghosh is the Head of Knowledge
Management Practice at NetGalactic India. He is currently
involved in a self-initiated research on grass root Knowledge
Services across the world named, “Mobilizing Knowledge
Management towards digital rights”. He can be reached
at knowledgeagent@vsnl.net;
sunny@netgalactic.com
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