IGF 2023 WS #321 Connecting-Unconnected;To Support Meaningful Connectivity

Description:

Common Room Networks Foundation (Common Room) has been develop and managing the School of Community Networks (SCN) program for 2 years. This program is one of the efforts to address the digital divide challenges in rural and remote areas. Indonesia has similar challenge with several other countries in efforts to reduce the digital divide, especially for internet access and meaningful connectivity. The problem of Connecting The Unconnected is often faced with a some of problems that are not only in the context of Indonesia but maybe also several other countries in Asia Pacific, ranging from very wide and diverse geographical conditions, limited supply of electricity sources, lack of adequate internet infrastructure, large bandwidth cost differences (in Indonesia, bandwidth costs outside Java are much more expensive, especially eastern regions such as Papua and Sulawesi), and the unavailability of adequate internet facilities & infrastructure. We interpret the principle of meaningful connectivity as basically reflects the relevance of the development and utilization of the internet as an enabler that is useful to face various challenges that continue to arise dynamically that are built, managed and utilized by the community in accordance with conditions in their respective regions. Many people, think or even cannot distinguish between universal access and meaningful connectivity. The term Meaningful connectivity often means the ability to access the internet every day using a suitable device with sufficient data and a fast connection. There is no the different between the meaning of universal access with meaningful connectivity, so the effort to connecting the unconnected will only focus on hardware and software. This session will be conducted using a sharing experience approach to redefine the purpose of meaningful connectivity that focuses on developing brainware or human resources.