SPARK LIBRARY EVOKATION_The Challenge

2. Challenge: The Digital Divide

For those in the OECD, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing global connectivity is here: the World Wide Web has made it possible for anyone, anywhere to access anything.

2.1 The Digital Divide

In reality, however, that is not the case. While author Thomas Friedman has added much to the perception of a flat world, he is also quick to point out that without a web connection you are not in the game[12]. In 2009 just over 25% of the world’s population were classified as Internet users, with conspicuously low percentages of Internet penetration in both Asia (19.4%) and Africa (6.8%). (figure 2.1)

Figure 2.1 World Internet Usage and Population Statistics (Source: www.internetworldstats.com)

There are, however, steady signs of improvement. The growth of high-speed connectivity – practically mandatory for the contemporary web - has grown from just over four million subscribers ten years ago to some 400 million in 2009. (figures 2.2a - 2.2c) Even though much of the world still remains either disconnected or hobbling along on painfully slow dial-up networks, a significant milestone was achieved in 2009 when the first sub marine fiber optic cable reached the Eastern shore of the African continent from its origin in Mumbai.

Figure 2.2a The Global Growth of Broadband – 1999 (Source: BBC)

Figure 2.2b The Global Growth of Broadband – 2004 (Source: BBC)

Figure 2.2c The Global Growth of Broadband – 2011 (Source: BBC)

It is important to take note that what regions like Africa and Asia lack in percentage of users, they make up easily in sheer number of users. Asia, for example, despite having less than 20% web penetration already represents over 40% of global Internet users. Contrast that with North America, who despite having a commanding 74% of their population online only have a 14% share in the total number of users. While it is only a matter of time until Asia, driven by broader penetration into India and China, significantly outweigh the US and Europe in volume of users, it remains to be seen how these parties will use their girth to steer the development of the web itself.

2.1.1 Who is on each side of the Divide?

The decade-long head start that the OEDC has in large-scale Internet mobilization is nonetheless extremely significant. One way of expressing the current disparity is what educator Marc Prensky has termed digital natives and digital immigrants[13] - the difference being whether digital technologies such as personal computers, Internet, and mobile phones were widely available in a society throughout a child’s development. Prensky asserts that natives are almost automatically accustomed the language, rites, and customs of the IT, whereas immigrants, who come to these

tools after living a non-digital existence, operate with a thick accent. The first generation of OECD natives is already emerging from college while the bulk of their peers from developing countries are by and large still scrambling to adapt.

On the other hand, this logic might become outmoded by the evolution of the Internet itself. Most observers recognize the decline of the preliminary methods of communication of information online, which involved users going to sites strictly to access content provided by the site’s administrator. Web 2.0 is the catchphrase for sites that shifted to more interactive platform, which not only allows users to access data but also relies on them to generate content themselves. As the interface between the user and the network become more engaging, we may witness a casting off of the immigrant complex that hampered the previous generation. Furthermore, the next Internet evolution, referred to as the semantic web, aims to understand the meaning of online content as pure information, thus providing ultimate accessibility to humans and machines alike, perhaps further easing the transition for fresh users.

Conjecture aside, what is the situation at the threshold of the digital divide in 2010? To answer this question, it is useful to examine in detail EVOKE itself as a MMO (massive multiplayer online game) that offers interesting insights from both sides of the chasm. The focus of the game is to get participants to put their energy towards solving real world problems. The potential is enormous: in her TED presentation creator Jane McGonigal cites data suggesting online gamers have spent a combined total of 5.9 million years playing the worlds largest MMO, World of Warcraft. EVOKE’s mission is both a manifesto and a rallying cry:

“EVOKE was also conceived as a crash-course in changing the world. It is a chance to showcase the kind of resourceful innovation and creative problem-solving that is happening today in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions, and to collectively imagine how the lessons from those scenarios can transfer, scale, and ultimately benefit the entire planet.”[14]

The goal of the game is to achieve an epic win, which McGonigal defines “as an outcome so extraordinarily positive you had no idea it was even possible until you achieved it.” The epic win that EVOKE is searching for is the real world solutions for major problems facing Africa. The creators believe they can make strides towards achieving this by combining the incredible resourcefulness, dedication, and ingenuity of gamers with social networking tools akin to Facebook.

In its structure the game is a straightforward techno-utopia, who idea of winning is more dependant on the process than on specific outcome. The goal of the system is to create the maximum amount of information sharing and relationship building between gamers - especially between avant garde sustainability activists and those living in the developing world currently dealing with issues of food security, energy scarcity, disease, water shortages, etc. Most top players drawn into the game have a altruistic disposition and are motivated to continuously contribute at a high level in hopes of gaining one of twenty seed grants dedicated towards real-life funding of the best ideas put forth in the game[15]. The format of the game regularly emphasizes the importance the individual. For example, according to the ambiguous How To Play link you will find the message, “Take the journey you want to take and chose the rewards you want to earn.”[16]

2.1.2 The Reality of the Divide

Once you get past the utopian rhetoric, the goals of the game are rather modest: get people from all around the world to share information and hopefully start spin off efforts. However, early on it became apparent that there was a severe imbalance between percentages of players from Europe and the United States versus their African counterparts. A survey sampling of 50 EVOKE gamers (from the 14,217 players at the time of the survey) chosen at random from the Agent database consisted of: 28 North Americas, 16 Europeans, 2 Asians, 2 South Americans, 1 Australian, 1 Latin American/Caribbean, 0 Middle Eastern, 0 African.[17] The data is not entirely surprising given the statistics regarding Internet penetration rates on Figure 2.1. This disparity does not go unacknowledged by African gamers themselves. In a blog within EVOKE a gamer from North America conducted the following interview with a fellow gamer from Uganda:

AGENT JAKE BAIRD: What is the worst crisis to you in the world currently that requires Evoke's attention?

AGENT SSOZI JAVIE: The Digital Divide! The GAP between the INFORMATION HAVES and HAVENOTS. The world is currently registering major political, social and economic developments and setbacks. The information age is demanding for creation of more information recourses. And sharing of more information. It’s a big shame that in many communities this need has not been realized. And in some communities access remains a very big challenge. In my opinion, information access and networking is the climbing step to solving a wide range of crises in the world.[18]

The digital divide poses serious threats to the effectiveness of the game. It is interesting to observe the cybernetic cycle of how this threat was acknowledged and dealt with in the game. The characteristic targeted is the presence of African gamers. The game organizers realized there were disproportionately fewer African gamers (undoubtedly they anticipated this). The decision of the comparators[19] was that more visibility of African gamers was necessary in order to ensure the success of the system. It is unclear from the perspective of the gamer the entire range of corrective measures the organizers implemented. One easily observable angle was to increase the number of friendships[20] by African gamers by putting them in a “Featured Agent” heading of the Agent directory (figure 2.3).

Figure 2.3: Screenshot of Featured Agents (source: screenshot by author with notes by author)

Gamers themselves were acutely observant of the activities of the organizers, as is reflected by this blog post by Agent A.V. Koshy[21]:

It's none of my business if Evoke wants to create an elite set of leaders for the world who will be from all the races but American and Eurocentric inside. Take the leader board. Look carefully at it. Look at the approved projects - the patterns are emerging clearly but it's not my business, I'm here to game, to help people and the world with its problems, to make friends and ultimately to learn, find out what's happening and also see if my vision for autistic peoples can fit into theirs and vice versa, since it is an international vision, in which case I'm ready to move with them. As for you, I know as little about you as I do about them. There are networks and networks and the future is about swarm theory, crowdsourcing, collaboration etc. Evokers are new, and trying to push the boundaries, so to that extent I'm with them. This is an experiment regarding the future and I want to be in it to see where it leads.

The reality instantiated by EVOKE is a provocative and sobering counter to views regarding the degree to which the web has managed to connect all peoples on the globe. It is apparent that those on the front lines, who seek out and, in the case of the organizers, depend on this connectivity to exist, that the digital divide is indeed a significant barrier. The prospects for change are already in motion and, while all indications are that the gap is steadily closing, we are clearly still a ways off.

What about the world after the divide closes? What might we expect to see from a game like EVOKE in five or ten years? On one hand there is clearly a desire to facilitate the proliferation of knowledge. EVOKE gamers on each side of the gap have met the challenges of the system with great alacrity and are clearly probing the limits of the system. But EVOKE is only one instance. Even if the existing Web 2.0 platform maintains only its current level of sophistication, knowledge sharing sites such as Wikipedia, Youtube, and Flickr will experience an explosion of new content. If, as some predict, institutions of higher education become disaggregated and given universal access, it is reasonable to imagine a spike in learning that would dwarf the Renaissance. Significantly, the majority of the above activity is going to be generated and consumed by the population epicenters of China, India, and Africa, which promise to shake up the American and Eurocentric dominance of current web content. Indeed, in the future of examples like EVOKE, it is not entirely unreasonable to think you may have trouble finding the OECD players amongst the incredibly numerous counterparts from the rest of the world.

But, as Buckminster Fuller reminds us, we are the architects of the future, not it’s victims. This was the very same frame of mind with which Sir Thomas Moore framed the original Utopia (at least the first such named). Moore sketched out his vision for an ideal society at the critical juncture when Europe was colonizing the New World. Like Fuller and his other ideological descendants, Moore understood the promise that with a proper course of action something better could take place in the future.[22] Where are the current leaders of the utopian project leading the society? It would seem that rip > mix > burn[23] is still the operative catchphrase. Projects such as EVOKE or TED are hungry for a balance between finding the right creative minds, connecting them to other creative minds, sparking a synthesis of ideas, and providing channels to the necessary resources to realize those ideas. A concrete example of this is an EVOKE post from Agent Heyming proposing an initiative called Gratitude Gardens (the underlined portions represent hyperlinks):

This idea has been inspired by several other Agents, from Agent McLellan's Hyperlocavore movement to Agent Buentrostro's Community Urban Farms , Garden Earth Project, and even Agent Falconer's connection with the local ecovillage and his heritage as a South African.

I think all of these agents are on the right track, so I created the Gratitude Garden Movement as a way of making this work something anyone can contribute to and create a global resource for sustainable gardening practices.

Agent Heyming goes on to explain his concept for the Gratitude Gardens Movement, which, as he alluded to, is a synthesis between his own ideas and new ideas he discovered in the game. The post generates a significant amount of chatter and support from other gamers and inspired some to take the first steps to creating Gratitude Gardens in their own communities. The idea stands an excellent chance of receiving future funding from the game organizers, especially if it continues to attract more supporters both within and outside the game.

2.1.3 Increased Knowledge Penetration

In order to take advantage of this vast pool of knowledge, individuals from the target region (e.g. Africa) must have web access. Ideally, numerous libraries would be established on the frontiers of Internet penetration. This is precisely where the establishment of new libraries could have the largest impact. As web connectivity reaches into new territories more libraries are added: each offering free online access to all members of the community and a synthetic approach to orientating new users to the array of resources now available. If strong communication channels are established between these libraries, solutions found to be effective against local or regional challenges will spread quickly throughout the network.

2.2 Strengthening Local Culture in the Face of Globalization

The digital divide exists, but it is closing and by the time it vanishes completely the demographics of the parties currently separated will be very different. The utopian vision that is observable from the examples cited here represent a desire to forge a future society that uses Internet technology, specifically social networking, to harness the enormous amount of resources available online and focus that energy towards solving tangible problems in the real-world. Perhaps an unspoken promise is that by focusing intensely on the individual and their unique position to fuse knowledge shared by others with local insight, they can illicit change in their own community that will be both empowering and incredibly unique. Globalization, in this view, may not represent a soul-crushing blandness but instead an incredibly fascinating kaleidoscope of hybridized ideas.

2.3 Post Script

After reviewing a draft of this Evokation, fellow Agent A.V. Koshy provided a link to the following map featuring the relative placement of Evoke Users. (figure 2.4)

Figure 2.4: Screenshot of Map Showing Locations of Evoke Agents (source: screenshot by author)

Return to: SPARK LIBRARY Executive Summary.

[12] Friedman, Thomas. “World is Flat 2.0.” MIT Open Courseware. Accessed March 28, 2010.

[13] Prensky, Marc. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” In On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001)

[14] /font>http://blog.urgentevoke.net/2010/03/09/who-created-evoke-and-why/> March 25, 2010