Digital Divide

Rinat Malik: 00:00:00

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Tech Talk a podcast where Amit and I talk about various technology related topics. This week we're going to talk about a very interesting topic well as usual, but today's topic is a little bit a little bit different. And I think the audience is going to get quite intrigued with this topic. It's what we're calling digital divide. And this is a topic which looks into the division that is occurring in terms of accessibility of digital products in terms of internet computing altogether. And this divide is sort of, you know, as we are advancing in technology as you know, mankind, humankind. You know, we're thinking that, you know, more and more people are having access and they have, you know, our society is becoming more and more meritocratic by by day, but actually, with research and you know, after looking into it a little bit more in detail, we see that there is still division, based on financial situation based on accessibility. And this This is something that we want to be aware of and be cautious of, and also work towards not having a digital divide based on the things that shouldn't be a reason for different levels. of access of information. So, this is actually a very cool topic and very, very important topic to be aware of, and we would like our audience to be to be knowledgeable on this so you guys can be more proactive on accessing internet or any digital products and also help others so everyone can have a more sort of distributed internet for everyone. So yeah, without further ado, let's, let's start talking about it. Amit. Thank you. For coming up with this topic. Give us a little bit of introduction of what it is.

Amit Sarkar: 00:02:09

So, thanks. Thanks again Rinat. And thanks again having you you've given a good introduction. But the reason I selected this topic is because I was watching a video while writing something for my newsletter and this was about starlink. And the lady in the video just mentioned something called as digital divide. So, I googled it and then I realized, okay, it's a very relevant topic, which people don't think of, because we live in cities, so people are watching the podcast or even listening to it. They have, they may have access to a smartphone, they have access to high speed internet. Internet itself is a huge thing. And they are listening to us on maybe Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube, Google podcasts, etc. So, they are people who have access to all these technologies, but there are many other people who don't have access to these technologies. And that's what the digital divide is like you have wealth inequality you have digital inequality. So not all people have access to the same level of digital infrastructure at the same cost. So, if say for example, so digital divide, so digital means anything that's in the, in the internet, or the internet, on your smartphone, or on your computer, anything it is in that format, then it's called digital and then the divide. So, the divide happens because, say for example, you have a high-speed internet at your home which is about say 200 Mbps and you pay about 20 pounds per month. Say for example you do that. Now if you go outskirts in the countryside in the UK, someone is getting maybe five Mbps and they still pay 20 pounds so for them they are getting a low speed but at the same cost. So that's not fair. So, it means that they will not be able to make a I mean they might be able to make a good zoom call. But then if there are too many people in the House who are using the internet at the same time then there is a what do you say the there is a loss in quality. Okay, so there is a loss in quality and that is not acceptable. But people have to live up live with it because they don't have any other option. So, so that's with respect to geography because they are where they are and the infrastructure is just not available because they are very far the companies that provide the Internet services. They don't have a what do you say a business case or economic case to justify the amount of spending that they have to do on the infrastructure that can provide Internet just to a few people in a small village or a town. So that's one aspect. The other aspect is about education. So, a lot of I mean, we take technology for granted because we have grown up with it. We have lived with it. We have we see it on a daily basis. We work in that industry. So, we take it for granted but a couple of generations. Just before us, they are not familiar with it because they have never used it. They are aware that okay, there is a smartphone there is internet and they have to learn how to use it. But there are many people who can't and it's very difficult for them to access services. Most of the government services in the UK can be accessed using the internet. So, you just go to a website you apply for an application or a form you apply for taxes you apply for your pension you apply for etc. Many of the services, social services and you get those benefits but there are people who can't so they have to go to say a library or to the council and then ask someone to help them to get those access. So that's with respect to the education aspect of it. Then there's just a social aspect or the economic aspect. Like I end up work in the IT industry we get reasonably good pay, but there are people who work say in the in the in the service industry. So, there are there are people who are helping out as a salesperson, they are doing delivery on a regular basis. And then there are many of the people in this service industry that just can't afford high speed internet. They can afford internet but not high speed. So, there is that divide as well. So, there are these various factors that are causing people to use the internet but not at its petite like not at its peak potential. Like say for example we are recording this over a zoom call. So, you and I we have good quality video. We have good quality audio. There is no lag there is no jitter we can hear each other clearly; we can see each other clearly. And that is because we have good internet. I have many other devices already connected. I have my smartphone connected my smart home devices connected they are all using the internet and still the speed is good and there is no lag. So that's what is the digital divide all about.

Rinat Malik: 00:07:13

Yeah, absolutely. And when you when you sort of first mentioned this and that really opened my eyes in so many ways because it's important not only politically but also a short socially important topic to talk about and be aware of. And I mean, I think in the past in different episodes of our podcast, even I said, Oh, nowadays everyone has a smartphone, talking about it. But obviously while this is something that we're taking it for granted and we're thinking everyone has a smartphone but actually if you really look at the statistics globally, not everyone has a smart smartphone and a smartphone enables you to get information quickly in a way that you can use it for whatever project you're working on, to a degree that you can't use just simply can't you know whether you want to be educated, whether you want to get some information to do a physical project on whatever you're doing. If you have or don't have a smartphone that makes a big difference. And then that's just one tier. You know, you could probably put different tiers of access of technology, right? So, you know, having a smartphone or a computer or a laptop is just the first part. And then you have to have internet and then you can have internet but then you might not have good enough speed to be really productive as you just mentioned our current scenario, you know, we're having a zoom call, we are recording it, etc, etc. And the fact that we are not having to be sort of obstructed with difficult connections we can like flawlessly talk and not have to worry about it and that is a hindrance to productivity for people who doesn't have this. So, there are so many ways and so many tiers of accessibility of digital products and then that affects your productivity and, you know, as a change reaction it also affects how successful you can become in this you know, more and more digital world. And this is something we want to be aware of one of the things I am really passionate about technology because what I thought was its equalizing everyone, you know, it's more distributed, you know, everyone else has the access to internet and all the information available to us as human kinds and anyone can you know, there is no, there is no sort of gatekeeping of information, you know, whatever you want to achieve or do in life. You can just, you know, maybe go on YouTube and search for a step by step guide and someone already done it and documented it. But actually, it's not accessible to everyone someone can afford a laptop or a smartphone or if they can they have to pay like megabytes per megabytes for internet access, which is not a lot of the times financially feasible or even if they can pay it's not speedy enough so they can be really productive with the project that they're working on. So, this is actually massively important on a social scale political scale. And you know, overall, for for human progress. We want to make sure that everyone has more and more access to technology. I mean, you know, last week we talked about tax GPT which is you know, one of the cutting-edge topics in current days, but it's making, you know, a lot of work a lot easier. augmenting your performance etc, etc. But if you don't have access to it, then how would you take advantage to it and, you know, a small number of people do have I mean, you know, you think, you know, as an audience I would imagine you guys have access to internet anyway. But you know, you're thinking that okay, we all have access to chat GPT you know, it's all not just LGBT, but anything you know, YouTube, education sites, etc, etc. And we can all progress and stuff, but actually, there is a quite a significant portion of people in the world who doesn't have access to it. So, it is very unfair to them. Whereas you could potentially go to Google or an AI module and get your CV or cover letter written very professionally to the highest of standards. There is someone else in the world applying for the same job who has to write no with who has to write, you know, eds cover letters in a tailor made for each job application. So yeah, we want to make sure or be aware of and do everything we can to bridge this gap between this you know, different levels of access and you know, not have the digital divide that it currently is happening in the world.

Amit Sarkar: 00:12:08

Absolutely Rinat. I think that is very important because a lot of people are not able to utilize the opportunities that are possible through the internet, just because it's difficult for them. But when we talk about digital divide, I mean, I mean, see, even if people have access to smartphones, they may or may not have access to high speed internet, even if they have access to high speed internet, they may not know how to use the devices and even if they know how to use the devices, some people are disabled, so they cannot actually use the internet that the way the internet is supposed to be used because, say I am deaf so I can't hear much. So, I want to go and watch a YouTube video and learn from it but there are no subtitles. But now there are subtitles, so I can use it. And say for example, I am blind and I want to use the internet. But there are no audio descriptions, but now their audio description so I can actually go through the text on a web page, and I can understand what's written and I can absorb the information and do something about it. So those are the ways in which the digital divide is being addressed. And that's something called as digital inclusion. Like how do you include everyone in the world to use these services that are available or through the internet? And these are like two interconnected topics. And what are the reasons that the digital divide occurs is simply because of economics. As I mentioned, infrastructure, so say for example, we are in the US, the US is a huge country or Russia. It's a huge country, and you have pockets of very high density populated, densely populated areas, and then your pockets where are very low, dense, low density. So even in the UK, it's the same. So, where you have high density, you have more people so more money, more opportunities, more business. So, there is an incentive for companies to invest in infrastructure, because they will, they can invest in the infrastructure and they can earn more money because they don't have to invest in infrastructure over a large area. Now suppose they have to go and provide the same services to a very small, very less densely populated area, somewhere far away, where the population is 1000 people or 2000 people. Now they know that they have to spend a million pounds or a million dollars to build the infrastructure but only 1000 people will use. So, in order for them to recoup their investment. What they do is they price the services at a very high cost or it just doesn't make business sense for them until unless there is a government incentive, which will say that okay, fine. The government is providing me incentive. So, I can use that and I can then provide benefits to the population. But that doesn't happen. So, you have this geographical problem. And the way to address these things is through something like a stalling an internet connection that's available everywhere, no matter where you are. It's available even in remote places at the top of Mount Everest. If you're in an RV, if you are mobile, you can still use it. So, it's an equalizer. But of course, it's still not very cheap. So not everyone can afford it. But when it comes to say, opportunities, if I'm not on the internet, I don't have access to information, I lose out on business. But if I have internet then I have those opportunities I can increase my business so now it's like an investment. So, people are now investing in such technologies, because that will help them to get on the internet and start selling their services. So, it's a it's a it's an amazing time to be alive, to experience all these things that are happening.

Rinat Malik: 00:16:09

Absolutely. And to be honest this is a this is a like a double-edged sword in a way because we absolutely welcome anything that you know, sort of reduces the digital division and satellite internet system is one of them and that you know makes internet available for everyone. But then again, obviously there is the question of cost. Starlink, as far as I know, is actually quite expensive. But again, it's, you know, the companies that are making this fully distributed internet system available. They are some of the really large corporate companies who are obviously you know, taking the largest market share so it's a double-edged sword in a way that you know, large corporate companies are getting benefited but then again, they are also bringing internet as a you know, well distributed to everyone. So that is a benefit but, you know, I don't know how happy I want to be on this progress, but at least you know, the good part is that rather than a monopoly, if starlink was the only one was supplying this, then it would have been a monopoly which would be you know, worst for consumers is becoming an oligopoly, which is, you know, few big players competing for the customers and that's the best for consumers. And I think Virgin Atlantic is also Is it personal Atlantic, or

Amit Sarkar: 00:17:38

I think Amazon is trying.

Rinat Malik: 00:17:42

And then and then Richard Branson's company, I thought it was

Amit Sarkar: 00:17:45

I don't know, I don't know. Maybe we can do some research. But Starlink is definitely and then there is Amazon. Jeff Bezos. There is some company called one web. I don't know if it is related to Amazon, but I think it's related to Europe. European constellation, but yeah, so these are the companies that are actually trying to build a constellation of satellites that can provide Internet access to almost everyone in the world. But of course, I mean, if these are competing companies, then you have to look at which services are better which services are globally available, and which services are cheap. So you have

Rinat Malik: 00:18:24

but the key thing is the fact that they are competing, the big companies are competing against each other that actually works out quite well for consumers. So that's the good thing. Speaking of this, so this this is like a access problem that is being solved, which is a really good thing, you know, access to internet. But then again, you know, you mentioned earlier about accessibility, like you know, not everyone has all the all the accessibility options right now, and you know, we are being digitally inclusive as much as possible. And we, you know, Amit and I were both very passionate about digital inclusion. And I would, I would ask the audience to go back and go back, listen to one of our earlier episodes called a 11. Why project, we had a guest appearance on that, from that project as well. That was actually quite an informative project and informative episode to understand the digital accesses and what is being done. To include everyone in you know, in the digital world, and it is very important, and we are, as you guys would know, the regular listeners that we have scripts. So we have, you know, visual translation as well as you know, is available as many ways as possible. So, that's, that's an that's a good example of what should be happening so it's everyone can sort of enjoy all the digital content that are available and make use of it. You know, sometimes just to you know, be informed, be educated or get that information to put into practice. Whatever you want to do. You need to have this information available to hand without much difficulty. So it's, it's, you know, equal for everyone. And that's what we're working towards, but I feel like this is something that is an eye opener topic for everyone to be aware of, including our audience to support and also promote as much as possible.

Amit Sarkar: 00:20:38

I think. I think one of the things that we always talk about when we talk about accessibility is the disability and other parts. But one key thing that we miss out is the spoken language. We record this podcast in English because English is a global language and most of the people in the world more or less understand English. We take it as an assumption. But the majority of the population do understand English. That's what we feel. But there are many. There are many people in the world who don't understand English and that also causes a digital divide because if most of the websites are available in just one single language, then when that person tries to come on to the internet, and they don't know that language, then we are excluding them. And that creates a divide. And that's what happens with I mean, people say in developing countries who don't have access to English education, who don't have access to any sort of English media, say through newspaper or through print, or through magazines or through television, even radio, so it's difficult for them to come online and then access the services because they just don't understand the language. So, one of the things that you might have noticed over the last couple of years is the push from the various big companies into translation services. So, a lot of languages are now being put online and there is a lot of effort being taken to make sure that the websites that are available in your region are available in the language that you that the population majorly speaks and that may not be English. And that's a very good way to actually include people and reduce the divide because that helps with more people getting on the internet. And I'm, I mean, we record this in English, our transcripts are in English, but we know that a lot of people in India, Bangladesh, Africa, they're listening to a podcast and that I think we are missing out on people who just speak just know English. We are who sorry, who don't speak English. We're missing out on people who don't speak English. But there is a huge chunk who do speak English and we are hopefully able to reach to them.

Rinat Malik: 00:23:00

Yes, yes, absolutely. This is actually a very, very interesting and another eye opener aspect of digital divide. Because yeah, we a lot of the times we think about all the different way of including people but again, you know, a lot of the times I've done many web designs and worked with various web designers and whenever it comes to actually you know, making the making a fashion in different languages. It always kind of is taken as a nice to have, let's have the website designed and make sure all the functionalities were those are the primary focus. And then, if possible, let's add one or two more languages so it's more accessible to people. But it shouldn't really be treated as a nice to have, but actually a must have. So, it's inclusive of all different kinds of people from different regional backgrounds. And this is a really good example because, you know, various, you know, so many people in third world countries, not only they have accent, you know, some people have never had any understanding of English and they've grown up and live their life and currently living their life within you know, within their you know, society and you know, perfectly fine with within the language and you know, all of these languages are very rich languages and has rich literature and all the other interactions, but basically, they're not English, so they're missing out on the digital, you know the world the large world of digital literacy and all of these, you know, information, education that are available in it. So, we also need to or should really make every effort possible to create content in different languages. So, you know, within our audience, we know that a large part of our audiences from South America, Africa, foundation, India, and none of these are primarily English-speaking countries. So, you know, if there is any interested audience who would like to sort of translate or work with us to create more inclusive content, we absolutely welcome that. And please do reach out or taking initiative by yourself to make not just our podcast but all the other informative digital content that are available and popular. Take them and translate them and that would also, you know, as well as being inclusive, it will also open up a very good side project, which will have, I imagine financial benefits as well. So definitely something to think about. And always be mindful of whenever you're doing any kind of IT projects.

Amit Sarkar: 00:25:51

I think, yeah, I think most of the big companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, meta, they do now a lot of translation. So, if I go to India and I want to access these services, I can actually read them in Hindi, Bengali or any other Indian languages. And that's quite a powerful thing and even on your smartphone, when you want to type something now you can type in various languages. So, it's not just that you are just bound by English you can actually type in various languages. So that's one way to make sure that people are included and the divide is not there. Because it's not about the language. Language is just a way to communicate ideas between two people. But it's all about like, do people have the idea itself? Do people have the knowledge and then can they work on it? And can they work towards solving a problem, etc, etc. And that's what it's all about, like, you learn something, and then you apply it, and then you try to solve a problem, and then we make progress. And that's how humanity has made progress over the years and the more and more people we include in this journey towards progress, the more faster we will make that progress because we will have more ideas we will have more, more viewpoints, etc. And I think that is important in a global world.

Rinat Malik: 00:27:16

Yes, absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more and there is so many aspects of of this digital division. I was like, as soon as you brought up the topic, I kept thinking about it and this is so many different ways I started really started to realize that all of these divisions and how we are missing out on these new perspectives because you know, we there is no there is there is no like thing about all there is only like six different perspective. Yeah, I mean, physical world with you know, you know, like a three dimensional world we live in there could be a can look at one physical object from different perspective, which is limited but when you're looking at ideas, there is no limit on different perspectives and all of these perspectives, adds value to the idea to become successful, and we are missing out on a large chunk of it. Because of the language barrier. And definitely do want to, you know, have you know, for foster human progress. I know we are progressing quite fast in the last 100 years, but we want even faster. So, yeah, for that we need to include more and more people. So we have a more inherent solution to any of the problems that we have worldwide.

Amit Sarkar: 00:28:35

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's very important. So, I mean, let's go back a bit about I mean, we talked about digital divide, we talked about how the divide happens, it could be economic reasons, social reasons, geographical reasons, and there are various reasons, but then how do you solve this problem? So, there are these factors and how do you then rectify that? And we spoke about it like you can have infrastructure, you can have government grant that subsidizes internet for the population so that they can get access to it. You can have digital literacy programs where people get education. So, there are in UK Council, if sorry, in London councils if you go to get education about say how to use a computer how to use Microsoft Excel, Word, etc. You can get a decent course and you can use that to then start using the internet. So, these kinds of courses are available so the digital literacy programs, the infrastructure, the grants and subsidization I think these are ways to reduce the digital divide. Of course, the infrastructure is the key thing. I mean, everything that we know of on the internet is built on some kind of infrastructure, physical infrastructure or digital infrastructure. If you look at Google or Amazon, they are very big companies but they provide a platform to host different kind of services on their systems. Say for example, Amazon is a big company that sells goods or different types of goods. But they provide a marketplace so people can come to their marketplace. It's like a shopping mall. I have a very big shopping mall. And then I just want to open a store in the shopping mall. And then once I open the store, because a lot of people are coming to my shopping mall, then they will come to the store, by hook or crook or whatever reasons and then I will get more footfalls and through that more footfall. I will get more revenue. So that's what that's why people want to get on Amazon. And the same with Google. Google provides the search infrastructure. They provide the end email, most of them. The most popular email platform is Gmail. The most popular browser is Google Chrome, and the most popular search engine is Google. So, they provide an infrastructure which people use and through that infrastructure, they sell advertisements, they sell many of the things. So, I think the key is the infrastructure. So, if you provide an infrastructure that is accessible to everyone, then you start including everyone, of course, what do you do with infrastructure? How do you charge for it? That's a different thing. But that part is very crucial. So same with the digital divide. When we have to provide a physical infrastructure, companies have to invest a lot of money in cables in wires in fiber optics, in in the big towers, etc. Most of the companies are not incentivized to do that, until unless they're making a huge amount of money. So then that's where the government subsidies come. But in order to bypass all that, then you have satellite constellations like Starlink that can jump over the stick a leap, and just change the game altogether. Because no one thought about providing I mean, I'm sure people would have thought, but the latency was quite high. The speeds are not enough. But now you can get good speeds with low latency. Low Latency means how much time does it take for the request to go and for you to receive a response if you take if it takes a lot of time for you to send something and receive something, then it's no good. And same with how fast it can come. So how much time it takes and how much data it can transmit. So those two things are quite important and with low Earth orbits, so Starlink is now on a low earth orbit, which is called a Leo of Leo. And because they are low Earth orbits, it means they're not very far from the surface of the earth. That means that the information doesn't have to travel too far. And they can travel between two points on Earth very quickly. And that's what Starlink is trying. To do and change the game. So I think these are some of the factors through which we can reduce the digital divide and help with keep getting more people on board.

Rinat Malik: 00:32:52

Yeah, absolutely. And this is this is actually a really good place to sort of have a really good thing to think about. So you know, as you mentioned, the digital literacy part, you know, governments have different incentives, not just government, various private training organizations have incentives to train and even the larger organizations like Google Facebook on you know, other big organization have various training programs, including I think Udemy for very beginners of not just internet, but even computing altogether. And those are, you know, a lot of the times those are free so please encourage, you know, if you're near friends and loved ones you know, is my eyes to the audience, too, become digitally literate. So that's just one aspect of, of digital divide, but what about the rest, you know, in terms of, you know, what we talked about today is the accessibility of internet. As you mentioned, starlink is solving that problem in one way and other satellite-based internet systems. In terms of bridging that gap, there are various government incentive to bridge any kinds of gap in digital divide anywhere but what can we do more and you know, I would ask the audience to think about different ways you can, you know, make things accessible, you know, maybe you work in an IT company yourself, and, you know, maybe you're a web developer who is developing or maybe you're, you know, in a meeting, you know, you can promote, more inclusive design and more inclusive availability of digital products, whether it's whether it be a web page or a desktop application or anything to do with digital divide, because it is quite important and we should be really aware and actively promoting this, at this stage of our journey to progress as humankind so, you know, this, you know, the more time is passed, the more division my you know, the more we might be divided. So, if we if we start working on it and promoting it at this stage, we might actually tackle this problem at the very beginning. So, there is no you know, even social discrimination way down in future because, you know, obviously everything is done on the internet nowadays. So, whoever has internet or DOD could be the make or break for their success in life or not. So, if we want a more equal society, we should be promoting digital inclusion in every way possible,

Amit Sarkar: 00:35:36

I am reduce the digital divide. Yes, I think it's the right thing. To do. Because I mean, that we've discussed all the points. We don't I don't want to repeat myself again and again, but I think it's important to be aware of this and take active steps, a lot of I mean, the whole aim of this podcast is to educate to make people think about certain things that are happening across the world. We take a technology and we try to talk about it and give her inputs, give her insights through our experience. And the same goes for this topic as well. So, we found a topic we thought, okay, let's talk about it and we've given her insight. Now using that insight, we are trying to reduce that because we have now this this is like kind of education medium. So, we want others to also think about it and see what they can do. Maybe write to your local councils or local governments to give better services, maybe check if starlink is available in your area and you can if you can get subsidy to get that installed and will that help bridge the digital divide? So, there are very many ways you can do that. As Renard mentioned, do translation services. So, if you know English, and if you know any other language you can help with translation and not just our transcripts, but any other project in the in the world because I'm pretty sure there are many documents that need to be translated so that people across the world can read those. So, there are many things that we all can do. And if you do a bit than that just changes the world.

Rinat Malik: 00:37:18

Yes, absolutely. And this This is a certain definite positive change in the world and definitely encourage our audience to work on this. So yeah, this was actually a really Eye Opener topic again, thanks again, for coming up with this. I you know, the more I thought about it, the more passionate and excited I've become to talk about it. And hopefully our audience got some value from our conversation and this topic. And yeah, as usual, please, guys do reach out to us if you have any topic in mind that you'd like us to cover, or if you'd like to be if you'd like to see someone as the guest or if you'd like to join us for a conversation yourself. All our contact details are in all the platforms that you can listen to us or watches so definitely do reach out. And yeah, I hope to hope to see you guys again next week.

Amit Sarkar: 00:38:35

Thank you, everyone for listening. See you