Digital Divide in Vietnam - Areas for Private Initiatives - "The Internet is for Everyone" Stefan Probst ISOC – ISTF – Opticom – Individual round-table presentation at UNDP office Hanoi

Digital Divide  DOT Force, DOI  Concentrate for now on the Internet (e.g. Only eCommerce, not eBusiness)  Forms of DigDivide: internal and external (today only some relevant points)  Digital Divide in Vietnam  Areas for Private Initiatives  Discussion – first steps?

Digital Divide – external  eCommerce - state regulations needed, but current focus seems to forget main obstacles - main obstacles in Vietnam at present: * banking (merchant accounts for eCommerce) * payment gateways (for payments in VND) * accounting (no "red invoice" in eCommerce!) * customs (no signed import/export contracts) - low CC usage no big problem! "B2B >B2C"

Digital Divide – external  Production of Digital Content for "Export" (SW, databases, publications, etc.) - needs skilled producers * talent * training - should have inhouse capabilities to offer online => ICP....

Digital Divide – internal... some points...  cities – urban – rural  more educated – less educated  have – have not's  young – old  special needs Social Opportunities or Social Threats? (e.g. counter the rural exodus - or create social instabilities)

Time Frame  External Divide : - very urgent - mostly state regulations - co-operation and pressure from non-state  Internal Divide: - less urgent, but - foundation to master external divide - much can be done via private initiatives

Main Obstacles – for User  Affordability - investment cost (PC => set top box) - running access cost (=> international and national competition and less regulation) - ability to maintain (PC => set top box, => community access) - ability to use (equipment and language skills) (PC => set top box: easier to use; in local language)

Main Obstacles – for User  Perceived Value - not enough Vietnamese content - irrelevant content - cumbersome (slow) access  Media Branding - publisher – reader (one way communication) - insider – outsider (only for small user group)

Digital Divde – Vietnam IssueLDCsVietnam purchase power [US$]poorvery poor market sizesmall to bigfairly big literacymostly poormostly good infrastructure (Tel.; Power) mostly poormostly good native language OS +SWmostly goodpoor state regulations?much regulated private initiatives?very few local contentfewfew

What To Do  Make available content accessible - HW, OS, browser: => set top boxes - PC-SW: => localized Linux ? - Access Fees: => DGPT (fees, competition, bandwidth) => US (international access) => ASEAN (peering agreements) - Content in foreign languages: => ??? (online translation)

What To Do  Enable creation of new content / encourage two-way communication - allow easy hosting by everybody - reduce hosting prices - standardize text representation - provide tools to create Vietnamese content - train potential producers

Tasks  Get in contact with Government - eCommerce regulations - ICP regulations (provide other countries' experiences) - eDemocracy discussions - get development projects * online translation * urban broadband access - standardization * character tables * sorting

Tasks  Get in contact with SW producers - localize SW, use common standards - create fonts for all platforms - create input method editors * capable of different Unicode representations * compatible with browsers - adapt Vietnamese search engines, WebMail - look for solutions for minorities, special needed people

Tasks  Educate, Promote, Monitor - businesses to use common standards - website creators to use common standards - people to use and to publish on the Net (e.g. online training) - status of the Net  Help - organize PC donations - selected projects for needy people

Why Private Initiatives?  The Internet has traditionally been planned by individuals (=> IETF)  Individuals have other motivation e.g. for issues, which are not interessant for business  Individuas have additional experience, relations....  Individuals are more flexible e.g. than governments  eDemocracy starts with a "bottom-up Inetnet"

Who / How To Do  Vietnamese and Expats together  Individuals & Business & Government  e.g. WGs > ISOC > UNESCO ARE YOU INTERESTED? WILLING TO JOIN?