Historically, peoples of developing economies have had a remarkable capacity for creativity and innovation in the arts, sciences and more recently – business. However, harnessing this capacity to produce content and making it available such that it can be accessed and possibly traded over the internet is now no longer an option for these territories – it is a must.
The need for greater generation of indigenous or “local” on-line content (e-content) has been at the heart of passionate debates in the ICT arena, in discussions as diverse as “Combating the Digital Divide” to “The Transformation into Knowledge Economies”. This issue of a country’s ability to produce high-quality, interactive and compelling content is not simply a matter to be philosophically debated in conferences and talk-shows, but is a clear and present matter of assuring a country’s / region’s current and long-term economic competitiveness, capacity for innovation and sense of identity.
A UNESCO website has been quoted as saying “The lack of local content is evident across all media and information channels. One needs to spend just a few minutes in front of a television or computer screen to notice the overwhelming presence of content coming from content providers in the developed countries, reflecting language, values and lifestyles which are often vastly different from those of the community ‘consuming’ the content”.
These realities result in a number of disadvantageous outcomes for the developing nations. Among them are:
- Loss of the rich culture and historical / heritage information of the Region;
- Lack of interest in traditions and culture on the part of youth;
- Overwhelm of foreign content with dissimilar priorities and values which inundate esp. young minds – resulting ultimately in socially undesirable behaviour;
- Insufficient and inefficient mechanisms to connect with and tap into the vast potential of the Diaspora; and
- Lack of self awareness and “connectedness” among those domiciled in-country.
INFOCOMM Technologies has been deeply involved in developing programs and initiatives to address the ‘content gap’. Moving government content on-line and providing frameworks for the commercial re-use of this content for niche markets so as to result in new forms of revenue generation. ICT Ltd. also has experience in content policy development towards the attainment of sustainable local content industries.