Digital Dividends grew out of the observation of certain "warning signs" visible among the four billion people—more than half of humanity—who live on less than $1,500 per year. Warning signs like the trends of rapid population growth in the poor regions; a surge in urban migration, bringing with it unprecedented strains on housing, water, and sewer systems; the depletion of biological resources; and persistent, even rising, malnutrition in many areas of the world.

"But trends are not destiny," wrote Dr. Allen L. Hammond, founder and director of the Digital Dividend project, in the March-April 2001 issue of Foreign Affairs. To right the course, a new development model is needed—one that makes credit, communications, information, energy sources, and other self-help tools directly available to poor communities, empowering them to take charge of their own development.

What makes such a model plausible, now, is the last decade's rapid expansion of global digital networks, the spread of the Internet, and the proliferation of telecenters, village phones, and other forms of shared access to information and communications technology (ICT).

"The imaginative use of emerging technologies and the creation of partnerships or cooperative approaches that combine the skills of major corporations with the growing strength of civil society," Dr. Hammond wrote, "can accelerate development in even the poorest regions and can reverse many of the most worrisome trends."

It will not be easy to harness the potential of ICTs to catalyze development in poor regions of the world. In many countries, only one in five people has access to a phone and fewer than one in twenty have access to the Internet.* Understanding what works and what does not work is key.

The Digital Dividend Project kicked off at an inaugural conference held in October, 2000, in Seattle, WA. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown, and nearly 40 other speakers addressed a group of over 300 attendees drawn primarily from the business and development communities. Click here to read more about the Creating Digital Dividends Conference

Our goal is to identify and promote business solutions to the global digital divide—sustainable models that will allow ICT-for-development to go global, creating social and economic "dividends" in poor communities around the world.


* Calculations based on data from the United Nations.