ICT and youth opportunities in rural areas.

Information communication technology popularly referred to as ICT, is a phrase that has gained popularity in the recent years the world over. Prior to the “Google”and “Ipad” generation, very little about ICT was known especially in less developed world, with the majority of us looking at it as a foreign concept especially in the African context. Much of the government businesses were conducted manually with papers flying all over from office to office as memos. The private sector was also not left out in what I may call the “paper era”, which meant for instance that bank transactions had to be done on paper including deposits and withdrawal of funds. But then came slowly the emergence of computers and the internet, which redefined how people communicated.  People no longer had to own a personal box at the local post office where mails were dropped in; one only needed an email account opened at no cost with internet access as the only requirement which was widely available in local cyber cafes albeit at a cost.

This sudden adoption and tech-craze that swept across the world, was largely pushed forward by the young people-mostly in urban areas and it came to symbolize a paradigm shift in the way we conduct our businesses. This has continued to grow in leaps and bounds with new tools coming up almost every day. People are able to share videos,documents, music, and socialize on the internet using tools like Facebook, Skype, Myspace, Twitter e.t.c .

Earlier on, people could only access these amazing services on their desktops, but the developments in the mobile industry has continued pushing the capabilities of the small handsets, from its traditional function of just voice and text messaging to a more complex complete package of both radio, camera and video, GPS etc.

Sadly though, all these amazing technological innovations are only limited to or enjoyed by folks in urban areas especially in developing countries. The penetration rate of these technologies hasn’t been that impressive. That could be attributed to factors like poor or a complete lack of infrastructure that can support them. The internet for instance was and still is- unfortunately, only limited to certain towns with electricity supply that would power the cybercafés. There’s also the issue of low bandwidth which makes internet charges quite high for peasants since they are bailed on per minute basis. The standards of living among the rural folk are also an impediment since the per capita income can’t spare cash for luxury which is what internet access was perceived.

The development of cheaper mobile phones, coupled with the review of communication charges by mobile operators to include tariffs for people on the lower cadre of the economy has greatly enhanced mobile penetration to areas that were hitherto enclosed with the only source of information –if any, being the radio. This has opened up the areas in terms of business and information flow. Young people are able to send and receive money easily without stepping into a bank. This means one can obtain a small capital wired/sent to them to start a small business via a mobile phone like its popular in Kenya.

The governments have also taken up the initiative and challenge positively to open up these areas through various programs. The Kenyan government for instance has an ICT policy in place to oversee the distribution of technology to the rural areas. This has been achieved in collaboration with other players and stakeholders in the ICT sector like the computer for schools program that has seen the distribution of computers to remote schools and community centers. There are also ICT hubs set up in villages, equipped with solar panels and modems for internet accessibility. In Rwanda, the one laptop per child (OLPC) program was rolled out in schools to transition the country from the “blackboard and chalk” education to a digital one. With such efforts, areas that were enclosed would certainly be opened up since information would easily flow in there. This means that students in rural areas for instance would be able to access recent learning materials on the internet thus be in a position to compete with their urban counter parts. This connection also means that students unable to afford the education offered in urban centers will enroll for distance classes thus obtaining a certificate at a fairly low cost.

Economic benefits are also likely to be accrued by the presence of ICT infrastructure in rural areas. The young folks would be able to benefit from the business process outsourcing (BPO) by taking online jobs for clients located thousands of miles across the world. The internet would also enable them advertise their business and projects thus exposing their SMEs, service and products to a wider market.  Youths from areas rich with scenic beauty could use cheap video cameras to capture the beautiful landmarks in their areas like water falls, games etc and share them with the outside world via channels like Youtube, flicker etc thus attracting tourists which would bring them revenue from the visitors.

There are also other benefits like internet publishing and opportunities offered by companies like Google i.e. Adwords and Adsense where people can generate revenue through the number of clicks generated by their adverts.

The benefits of ICT in rural areas among the youth are therefore immense. Their full potential are yet to be fully exploited, but the good news is that, so much is happening both in terms of ICT policy, institutional capacity building and the enhancement and harmonization of the legal framework governing the whole ICT sector to deal with issues on copyrights and intellectual property right, right to information access vis a vis government regulations. The institutionalization of ICT among the governments has seen many programs and services rolled out using ICT which makes it harder for the rural folk to ignore it as a luxury.