The Hindu Business Line : `Gains of info, communication technology must reach all'

THE Bangalore workshop on `Information and communication technology for sustainable development' commenced with a plenary session addresses by academics, technologists and UN and World Bank experts.

The three-day workshop, that aims to propose a research agenda that will lead to the implementation of information and communication technologies in sustainable development.

According to Dr V. S. Arunachalam, Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, information and communication technologies are an enabler of work and livelihoods, second only in scale to energy. ``We are in the white-heat of another technology revolution and must ensure that the benefits of ICT reach everybody,'' he said.

According to Dr Nitin Desai, former Under Secretary-General, to the United Nations, Bangalore is at the epicentre of the tremor of optimism that is rippling through India and the information and communication technologies have the scope and power to justify that optimism. The possibilities of the ICT revolution have become relevant to all, according to Dr Desai, with the possibility of collaboration, communication and content dissemination as well as the flat non-hierarchic structure of information flow that it favours.

Dr Peter Freeman of the US National Science Foundation laid emphasis on the need for infrastructure while Dean Dr Richard Newton, University of California, Berkeley, said the ICT community must try to explore asynchronous communication technologies for sustainable development.

Dr Eric Brewer, co-founder of Inktomi, said that network infrastructure is inexpensive enough to deploy economically to rural areas and can be used to build an economic base that will justify the development of conventional infrastructures such as roads and rail - which are population density and economic prosperity dependent.