SITB responds to the LegCo on measures to bridge digital divide

July 9, 2001

The Government is committed to strengthening the IT knowledge of the community for the exploitation of opportunities in the digital world, and to ensure that people can readily make use of IT in their daily lives.

This was stated by the Secretary for Information Technology and Broadcasting, Mrs Carrie Yau, when responding today (July 9) at the meeting of the Legislative Council Panel on Information Technology and Broadcasting to earlier views expressed by various organizations on issues relating to digital divide in a public hearing of the Panel.

Mrs Yau said that strengthening the Hong Kong community for digital exploitation was one of the key result areas in the "2001 Digital 21 IT Strategy". Various task forces have already been set up under different departments to deal with the issue and to implement related measures. These include:

- the Joint Committee on IT for the Welfare Sector, chaired by Director of Social Welfare, to promote the use of IT in the welfare sector;

- the Central Coordinating Committee on the Promotion of IT Usage among Women, chaired by Director of Home Affairs, to coordinate and promote the use of IT among grass-root women; and

- a task force under the Education Department to implement plans for applying IT in education for schools.

The Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau and the Information Technology Services Department will centrally coordinate Government policy and the various initiatives to address digital divide, and will consult the Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee where appropriate.

The "IT Hong Kong" campaign launched since last September to promote the awareness of the community in IT has attracted around 18,000 people to attend the training under the IT Awareness Programme, and of whom around 5,000 were senior citizens and 2,300 were people with disabilities.

The Government now plans to organize a new round of IT Awareness Programme to provide 8,000 training places for the general public, 5,000 for senior citizens, and another 5,000 for people with disabilities.

To lead by example in adopting barrier-free web site design for delivering electronic services, Mrs Yau said the Electronic Services Delivery (ESD) Scheme had been designed in conformity with internationally recognized "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines" developed by the World Wide Web Consortium. It also provides text only version for use by the blind and the visually impaired.

"To facilitate access by people with disabilities to public services electronically, we plan to enhance all Government web sites by 2002 or earlier in accordance with the web accessibility guidelines.

"We will also work with the Equal Opportunities Commission, IT industry organizations, the universities and other representative organizations of the blind and visually impaired to arouse the awareness of the community on the issue of web accessibility. We are now working with the Internet Professionals Association to organize a Web Care Campaign to promote web accessibility to the private sector," she added.

To facilitate the diffusion of IT in the community and to provide more opportunities for the public to use computers, the Government has installed more than 2,200 computers with Internet connection for free use at convenient locations around the territory, including community halls/centres, District Offices, public libraries, post offices, and Government-subvented organizations and voluntary agencies.

This number will be increased to about 4,300 by the end of 2001-02. Over 280 computers will be installed at around 250 elderly centers for use by senior citizens, and 540 computers with special facilities such as screen enlarging software, voice synthesizer software, power braille will be installed at over 460 centres for the disabled.

A Super Cyber Centre with over 100 computers has also been set up in the Canton Road Government Offices, Yaumatei, to provide free IT facilities, resource materials and IT training to the community.

"Apart from investing substantially in developing IT in education in schools, we have already spent $2.2 billion in implementing various measures to address digital divide. We will continue to monitor the situation of digital divide and will conduct annual survey so as to formulate appropriate policies and implement suitable measures to address the issue. We will also work with related organizations to build a 'digital inclusive' society," Mrs Yau stressed.

The Administration has provided detailed response to the submissions made by 14 organizations on the subject of digital divide during the public hearing on 14 May. The detailed response can be found in the Digital21 website - www.digital21.gov.hk.

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