How DigitalDivide.Org Emerged:
the Harvard/MIT Factor

A number of partners were involved in generating the ideas presented in this site. These partners were from governments, corporations, academic institutions and NGOs. The project from an advisory group of IT policy professors and researchers at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This advisory group was established by Craig Warren Smith, in 2000-2004. Prof Smith was for many years a philanthropic advisor to high tech corporations and technology billionaires. Late in his career, he was given a joint appointment at Harvard and MIT, invited by MIT Media Lab's Nicholas Negroponte and Harvard University 's Jeffrey Sachs. In Cambridge, MA, he established an interdisciplinary framework for closing Digital Divide, which combined the on tech-oriented MIT and the humanistic oriented Harvard University. The interdisciplinary perspective that emerged from Prof Smith's interactions in Cambridge resulted in the “ideas” section of this web site. The “action” section (focusing currently on Indesia) emerged only after Prof Smith was sent by Harvard to be a visiting professor at National University of Singapore, creating a base from which he advised ICT Ministers and Asia/Pacific executives of multinational corporations in India, China and Southeast Asia.

The Quadir Factor

While at Harvard, Craig Smith developed an important association with Iqbal Quadir. Iqbal Quadir, a former Kennedy School lecturer and now project director at MIT, who also founded Bangladesh's Grameen Phone. Quadir became chairman of the “Financial Solution to the Digital Divide” initiative which was the precursor to the Investor Group Against Digital Divide (IGADD) project now deployed by DigitalDivide.org in Asia.

Mr. Quadir was the first social entrepreneur from the mobile sector in emerging markets who achieved international attention. Though he is famous for introducing “village phone ladies” as an important part of Bangladesh's poverty reduction scheme, Quadir's most significant innovation is the notion that social ventures can profitably interwoven into Asia 's wireless business models.

Where are Funds Came From

Those who provided financial and in-kind resources to support these ideas include Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, MIT Media Lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute of Policy Studies (Singapore), and Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and Industrial Finance Corporation of India (New Delhi). Hewlett-Packard (Asia-Pacific) took the lead in bringing the "Financial Solutions" initiative to the Asian ICT Ministries' Summit, which Craig Smith keynoted in Hyderabad, India in 2004.

Those institutions that offered to serve as hosts of Financial Solutions seminars include Goldman Sachs (New York), Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (Bangkok), India's Ministry of Information and Telecommunications (New Delhi), and Indonesia's Ministry of Information and Communications. Others that provided research funding include Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, Paris) Research teams in each participating country were supported by Harvard's Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies, where Craig Smith was Senior Fellow in 2004-5.

In Thailand, Assumption University was research partner for the Financial Solutions to the Digital Divide project. The Thai team was led by Team Leader, Asst. Prof. Dr. Supavadee Nontakao (Dean of Faculty of Science and Technology), Asst. Prof. Dr. Pratit Santiprabhob, Prof. Dr. Graham Winley, Dr. Jirapun Daengdej, Asst.Prof. Dr. Thotsapon Sortrakul. Other members of the team included Dr. Graham Winley, Dr. Pratit Santibohob and Ms. Rattanawan Rattakul. Their work was backed up by another team from the ICT Ministry.

In India, several meetings were held in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai to build a research group for a Financial Solutions to the Digital Divide India initiative, under the invitation of the ICT Minister of the Hindu party. The institution that offered to volunteer as research partner is the Economic Research Department of India's second largest finance institution, IFCI, under the leadership of its chairman. In addition, International Management Institute (IMI) Director General Dr. Nitish Sengupta nominated Dr. Himadri Das to support this effort. The Confederation of Indian Industries also agreed to support research on this initiative. Though not formal sponsors, others include McKinsey & Co (New Delhi), OECD (Development Assistance Committee), and Goldman Sachs.

In Indonesia, Intel's Southeast Asian division, under its managing director Yi Loong Lai, took the lead to bring "Financial Solutions to the Digital Divide" to Indonesia in 2004 and 2005. The emphasis was on establishing a financial model in which public and private stakeholders (domestic and international) would all share costs of risks of accelerating wireless market penetration. The Harvard Club of Indonesia hosted the first session, attended by senior representatives of various ministries, including the country directors of the major IT multinationals, the country's chief telecommunications companies, World Bank, USAID, IFC and other bilateral and multilateral agencies.

This meeting led to the formulation in Indonesia of Investor Group Against Digital Divide (IGADD), in which DigitalDivide.org joined with two other founding partners. One of these is Indonesia 's major technological university (Institute of Technology Bandung, commonly called ITB) and The Habibie Center, which serves as the Secretariat for IGADD. DigitalDivide.org founder Craig Warren Smith was invited to be in residence for six months at The Habibie Center in 2008 to help IGADD become the aggregator of public and private sectors as they seek to transform the economy with broadband technology. The goal of IGADD in 2008 is to develop an “investment policy” at the invitation of the Republic of Indonesia's Department of Communications and Informatics (Depkominfo), which has itself become an IGADD partner. See Indonesia.

Now that IGADD model is formulated in Indonesia, relationship between DigitalDivide.org and Harvard and MIT has moved to a new level. The Harvard and MIT Clubs of Indonesia have invited IGADD to create a 2008 seminar at MIT in Cambridge MA. These sponsors will be joined by the East Coast chapters of PERMIAS (Indonesian Student Association in the United States).

The Cambridge seminar has two aims: One is to introduce Cambridge-based Indonesian students to the Indonesia portal of DigitalDivide.org. The web site's Indonesian portal, now in development, will provide options for Indonesian based outside their home country, to contribute to market-based solutions to Digital Divide in Indonesia.

The second purpose is to introduce the interdisciplinary IT programs of MIT and Harvard to the innovative model for closing the Digital Divide which is emerging in Indonesia. We hope that this activity will lead to new partnerships between US and Indonesian universities. Preparing for that possibility, IGADD is forming a partnership with the association of Indonesian universities (Rector Forum). One possible outcome: a program of internships in which US university students will conduct summer internships with Indonesian universities, in an effort to formulate IT-based applications leading to jobs and economic development in Indonesia.

The first company to step forward as a sponsor of DigitalDivide.org in Indonesia was Nokia Siemens Network, a company that has embraced the challenge of emerging as a thought leader in the innovations needed for bringing broadband to the masses.