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A new approach to regional digital divides
Last modified: 2011-10-03
Abstract
This paper describes a proposal for development of regional strategies against digital divide, intended to build on the results from the Mo.Di and CRIPREDE projects cofinanced by the EU’s Interreg and Framework programmes. Our first thesis is that affected regions in the EU cannot rely on the proper market initiatives or wait for government intervention. They need to develop and implement their own strategies for bridging the “digital divide”. Our second thesis is that is that the poor uptake of e-services as a replacement for physical services is not only a consequence of the digital divide, but also due to the intrinsic differences between currently available e-services for citizens and companies and physical services available in urban centres. We believe that to bring users and e-services closer, efforts to make users more ICT aware and improving access to e-services should be complemented by making the e-services more approachable to the users.
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