Digital Villages Around the World

In 2006, Intel announced the World Ahead Program, its USD 1 billion commitment to bring uncompromised access to technology to everyone, everywhere. As part of the program, Intel carefully selected 5 villages on three continents to illustrate how accessibility, connectivity and education can truly transform a community, and more importantly the lives of its citizens. While each village had its own unique hurdles and solutions, enormous progress was made in just a short time. The success of these transformations was unequivocally due to the implementation of public private partnerships. The details of each transformation are outlined here.

Parintins, Brazil

Parintins, an "island city" in the middle of the Amazon jungle in Brazil, accessible only by airplane or a 12-hour boat ride, is a perfect example of the challenges posed by very remote locations. With no roads and limited infrastructure, education and healthcare were suffering. Only 61 schools of the region's 190 public schools and community centers had access to a power line. Only one school had computer access and that was just one PC with a 64K connection. There is only one hospital—a difficult, costly journey away for many people—and the city's physicians were finding it difficult to provide affordable, quality care.

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Baramati, India

Located about 120 kilometers from Pune, Baramati is a Tehsil, or administration center, for a group of villages. Though its economy is primarily agricultural, Baramati has a well-built infrastructure, with roads, water, and utilities. The small town also boasts India's largest dairy, capable of processing one million liters of milk per day.

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Guangdong Province, People's Republic of China

Located on the southern coast of the People's Republic of China, Guangdong province is 65 percent farmland, with the majority of its farming villages in mountainous areas. Although Guangdong has the highest total GDP of all Chinese provinces, its rural areas, which represent 40 percent of its total population, contribute only 22 percent. The remoteness and inaccessibility of villages is often cited as one of the reasons farmers can't keep up with the rest of the province. Another factor inhibiting development is the lower level of IT usage and competency compared to the cities. Because Guangdong is not alone in its rural challenges, China's national government has launched the New Countryside Initiative to improve infrastructure, education, and medical care systems for the country's 800 million farmers. IT will play a key role in China's educational and healthcare commitments.

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