Project Pillar:
Education Pillar

Keywords: Affordable computing, ruggedized computing, low impact computing, disruptive technologies, emerging market, ICT4D, sustainable development

OVF's Role: OVF is pleased to be among the Digital World Consortium partners from the International Cooperation Partner Countries.

Our participation in this project includes identifying and connecting initiatives at the global level, the regional level and the local level, identifying common factors and distinctive traits (WP4) (see DigitalWorld Project Work Packages below).

This project fits with our Holistic ICT Multi-sector Sustainable Development approach where different initiatives and actors are able to network and to exchange best practices and success stories in order to deliver development-related ICT research exploitation and cooperation roadmaps.

Project cost: N/A

Project Status: Just Launched

The Jan 17 Kick off event was attended by OVF's official DigitalWorld representative, OVF Ghana Director Kafui Prebbie.

The first meeting of the 18 month (Jan 08 - June 09) project, offered the opportunity for members to discus details of the 5 work packages (WP0 - WP4), timeliness and reporting mechanisms within the project.

Portions of the detailed Document of Work (DoW), WPs as well as issues that needed clarification were made to the Project Officer (PO) from EU.

The details of the agreement were finalized at this meeting including the distribution of tasks and distribution of monies..

Links/Resources:

	DigitalWorld home page
	09.27.07 | DigitalWorld Project by Roland A. Burger & Sebastian Guerrero (NEMATRIX Research) @ EURO-AFRICA ICT Meeting. Brussels
	01.17.08 | Paris France: EU FP7 DigitalWorld Project Kickoff Meeting
	World Digital Forum - Low cost ICTs to bridge the digital divide

Full Title: DigitalWorld Forum on Accessible and Inclusive ICT

Overview: The consortium brings together a plethora of experience and practical knowledge relevant to the development of low-cost initiatives for Accessible ICT.

Through this collaborative approach stakeholders will build credible, bottom-up oriented cooperation roadmaps in the field of ICT research. Participants by exchanging research on best practices and success stories will crate development-related ICT research roadmaps.

The goal of these efforts is towards real world practical implementation; to maximize the potential of ICT to improve lives and improve the quality of people’s lives in emerging markets.

Vision: Develop highly integrated, sustainable, low cost, easy to use and reliable ICT infrastructure to deliver effective development services in the areas of health, education, business, government, etc. to rural communities and under-privileged populations

Programme Background: The Digital World Forum on Accessible and Inclusive ICT ('Digital World') is a FP7 European project focusing on the use of ICT to leverage economic development in Africa and Latin America. FP7: FP7 is short for Europe’s Seventh Framework Programme for research and technology development (FP7) (see more on inset on left).

The EU sees the potential affordable computing to bridge the Digital Divide. The consortium acting upon this impulse, brings together a plethora of experience and practical knowledge in the fields of the latest low-cost initiatives for Accessible ICT to come up with a road map for results oriented field implementation that both increases marketspace for EU based companies while providing real and lasting value for emerging market communities, ventures and consumers.

Digital World will explore how to take advantage of the new paradigm of low-cost technologies in broadband infrastructure and devices, as well as the explosion of mobile telephony to bridge the digital divide and connect the unconnected.

Goals: Primary goal is to create synergy between all stakeholders in order to be able to build bottom-up credible and sound cooperation roadmaps in the field of ICT research:

	Assess the existing and competing Affordable Internet Technologies;
	Explore challenges to implement and develop economically viable ICT4D models using these technologies;
	Integration of systems and network ecosystems;
	Exploration of possible Roadmaps/scenarios to best tackle development issues in emerging markets;
	The potential of these ICTs to bridge the Digital Divide (The project works towards reducing the digital divide and social exclusion);

Project Design:

1. Digital World Focus Areas:

	Laptops: Low-cost laptop technologies where a series of paradigm-shifts are occurring that promise to change the landscape of ICT, with a change of scale that will affect not only the “developing world”;
	Mobile phones: Given the level of penetration and usage of Mobile phones in the Developing World, it is essential to evaluate the potential of these devices to offer access to ICT at low cost.;
	Low-Cost infrastructure: (internet access, wifi mesh, content) ;

2. DigitalWorld Project Work Packages - To achieve each of the project's scientific and technical objectives, the work plan is structured into five work packages:

	WP0: Management (coordinator: ERCIM) - Coordination process includes project management with regular reporting mechanisms as well as the organization of project reviews and the contact with the Commission and the Project Officer;
	WP1: Mobile Web Applications (Orange): Includes two main objectives "Identify actors of the mobile, laptop and access domain and engage them in DigitalWorld" and "identify opportunities, challenges and potential actions to tackle them in the mobile, low-cost laptop, access domain".
	WP2: Low-Cost Laptop: Includes two main objectives "Identify actors of the mobile, laptop and access domains and engage them in DigitalWorld" and "identify opportunities, challenges and potential actions to tackle them in the mobile, low-cost laptop, access domain".
	WP3: Low-cost Broadband Access and Infrastructure: Explore the key R&D or standardization actions that could lead to a better interoperability between the different existing access methods in order to leverage low-cost broadband availability in rural areas.
	WP4: Dissemination and Outreach: Achieve the objective "disseminate the roadmaps towards industry communities, political levels, EU circle, and local, regional and international forum".

Methodology: The aim of Digital World is to make the state-of-the-art in these domains common practice by identifying the challenges, and proposing a roadmap to tackle them. The roadmap will include the understanding that any complex implementation strategy involves a dynamic research and development process that enables effective multistakeholder collaboration. We believe that a byproduct of this multistake-holder approach will be project synergy between the different collaborating groups.

Local actors such as our OVF Ghana office will provide a grassroots perspective in considering how to design the structure to align the industry, research and academic communities and non-governmental organizations. This includes providing field expertise and feedback on the key factors of adoption being discussed in the Digital World Forum.

DigitalWorld Partner Profiles:

Project Duration: 18 months, from 1 January 2008 to 30 June 2009

Funding Agencies: European Commission, FP6 IST Programme EC funding:701,235 Euros (1,025,414 USD)