BOLD 2003: Development and the Internet

Hello, President Veri Bold!

Berkmania is a nation that, for all our intents and purposes, enjoys exactly the same geographical, political, social and economic situation as the country of Mexico.

You are the new President, and a great believer in the potential of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to transform, develop and improve your countries situation. You are keen to understand, respect and deal with the many difficulties that the people in your country face; your focus is particularly on the wide divide internally between the haves and the have-nots. You are also mindful of improving Berkmania’s position among the various e-ready countries of the world. You feel ICTs can drive Berkmania forward and enable it to compete with the best.

As part of your election campaign, you had announced that you would embark on an “e-Berkmania” initiative, if elected. You are convinced that you owe your thumping victory in the election to innovative and dynamic ideas such as this. Now, you are keen to push forward with this.

You have announced in a recent Press Briefing that you intend to pump in 1 million Berkmanian Dollars ($1,000,000), a significant sum of money, into e-Berkmania. Now, you are left with the onerous task of allocating it to the best causes and initiatives. You are particularly interested in determining the broad direction that this initiative will take; you are happy to delegate the actual work of choosing projects to the capable administrators in your government.

The inspiration for all this came from an online series you really enjoyed participating in (once again, you wonder whether it was called “BOLD” in your honor). You did all the readings in that course, participated in discussions with many interesting people, and now feel you are ready to put your mind to solving Berkmania’s vexing digital problems.

You ask Aich Too-Owe, your dependable aide, to update you on the status of ICTs in your country and the various recent initiatives in the field.

Aich suggests you look through the following documents:

· A World Bank update called ICTs at a glance.
· An interesting comparative presentation he found on the Web called The International Digital Divide.

If you have time to spare, there are a few other things worth skimming through. Click here.

Despite your enormously busy schedule, you wade through these documents, trying to make some sense of it all. You realize that it is going to be a difficult task making these crucial allocations; conceptualizing your country’s digital future is “many bits” more difficult than you had originally conceived.

“Good time to involve the brightest four members of my government”, you think. After their stellar performance on the BOLD series, it was only natural right that you appointed the Teaching Fellows - Nandan Kamath, Urs Gasser, Isabel Neto and Rebecca Brackley – to head what you consider four critical departments of your government. Kamath heads the Ministry of Telecommunications, Gasser the Ministry of Commerce, Neto the Ministry of Education and Brackley the Secretariat of ICT Policy Planning. Unwilling to rest on their laurels, each of them is keen to make a name for themselves, and hope to share in the glory of your e-Berkmania initiative. Each is convinced that most, if not all, of the $1 million must be pumped into the Ministry he/she controls. You are still to be convinced.

You call a meeting of the Famous Four. It is a fiery meeting as each of them makes their case before you. You pay great attention to what each has to say; this is the last source of information you will take into consideration before making your allocation decision. “There were some interesting thoughts there, a difficult choice for me”, you think to yourself as you review the four memos for the last time:

Why Infrastructure Matters Most By Nandan Kamath, Ministry of Telecommunications

Why Entrepreneurship Matters Most By Urs Gasser, Ministry of Commerce

Why Learning Matters Most By Isabel Neto, Ministry of Education

Why Policy Matters Most By Rebecca Brackley, Secretariat of ICT Policy Planning

The time has now come to make your decision. You have to allocate the $1 million between the four departments. The manner in which you share the pie is going to have a huge impact on the direction e-development strategy takes in your country. You are aware that tradeoffs need to be made - $1 million is a large amount of money, but will not cover all possible projects. You are conscious of the challenge of bridging the various digital divides - those between people and communities of various entitlements within your own country, as well as those between your country and the developed world. You ponder the short-term and long-term goals. Should you prioritize particular projects and push harder on one or two fronts, or is a multi-pronged, balanced, e-strategy appropriate, especially given the present socio-economic situation in your country?

As you crunch the numbers, you realize what a “Million-Dollar question” really is.

(Please note: The amount of $1 million is only illustrative, and meant to serve as an easy proxy for you to make your allocation decision. Please do not spend time itemizing the costs of various projects and considering how much they eat into the total of $1 million. Your purpose should be to show, numerically, the importance you give to one particular category of initiative as compared to other potential competitors for the same resources.)

Make your allocation decision: