2017 ICT4D Conference

In recent years, internet access has increased alongside rapidly expanding smartphone penetration in the developing world. And with this trend, there has been significant growth in the usage of internet-enabled messaging apps and social media coupled with exponential growth in digital content in these markets.

Within this consistent growth in usage and access there lays an immense amount of nuance around how individual users access and use internet-enabled devices, and how differences between cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic communities drive broader trends at country and regional levels. While each individual, demographic group and country-level ecosystem is different, the offline ‘usage gap’ is largely composed of people in lower income groups, living in rural locations with little or no digital infrastructure. The challenges of covering this population group go beyond the connectivity – content, end-user readiness, affordability and digital literacy are all key barriers beyond connectivity that the offline need to overcome to sustainably, successfully and safely go online.

What do we know today about what internet access, or lack of it, looks like at the individual user level? What are some of the nuances we’ve seen between user groups? What can we extrapolate to the country, regional or global levels? How do we successfully bridge the ‘usage gap’ in a market-driven, responsible way? What are some of the challenges facing the newly-online? What can we do as ICT4D practitioners to help solve them?