Archive - Year 2001

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Speech by Mrs Carrie Yau, Secretary for Information Technology and Broadcasting, at the Forum on City Informatization in the Asia-Pacific Region (CIAPR) Mayors' Forum

May 24, 2001

Following is a speech on "Hong Kong : Strengthening the Community for Digital Exploitation" by the Secretary for Information Technology and Broadcasting, Mrs Carrie Yau,at the Forum on City Informatization in the Asia-Pacific Region (CIAPR) Mayors' Forum today (May 24)

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am grateful to have the opportunity today in this prestigious international forum to share with you Hong Kong's experience in preparing the community to take full advantage of the development in the digital age.

The question of 'digital divide' is a paradox of concern in the 21st century. Many equate it with poverty in under-developed countries, arising from a lack of resources, infrastructure, and insufficient education. Well, to a certain extent, this may be true. But recent statistics have shown that the question also exists in developed as well as developing countries. So digital divide is more of a problem than money alone can fix and is common to all.

But what exactly does 'digital divide' mean? The OECD defines it as the gap between people who are able to participate in, and benefit from, the information economy and those who cannot. As technology leads to the development of new products, greater convenience and better services, so does the need increase for the community to have access to IT. Digital divide is therefore created and a global problem emerges.

Digital divide exists in many dimensions: between the rich and the poor; the young and the old; abled and disabled. Its impact is two-fold. At individual level, those who fall on the wrong side of the divide may have no access to the latest information and communications technology. They miss out on their right to exploit the advantages of the information age and, more importantly, to use technology to enhance their quality of life and self-competitiveness. At community level, the inertia of even a small section of the community will inhibit the migration of a society to participate in the digital economy.

So, how serious is the digital divide? Some figures may help to illustrate the position -

- According to the latest UN Human Development Report, industrialised countries, with only 15 per cent of the world's population, are home to 88 per cent of all Internet users.

- Less than one per cent of people in south Asia are online even though it is home to one-fifth of the world's population.

- With 740 million people, the entire African continent has only 14 million phone lines, which is less than that in Manhattan or Tokyo alone!

- The International Labour Organisation estimated that up to a third of the world's population was 'technologically disconnected' and that less than five per cent use the Internet.

These figures dramatically highlight the urgent need to tackle digital divide and raise the question of how the problem can be dealt with at domestic and international levels. In the following part of my presentation, I would like to share with you how we in Hong Kong are addressing this issue.

Hong Kong has a fully digitized telecommunications network since 1995. This has served as an important foundation for the digital economy to prosper. Indeed, we have been monitoring the IT revolution and as early as 1998, we established the Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau and published our "Digital 21" IT strategy. A key enabling factor of the strategy is to develop a cultural environment that stimulates creativity and welcomes advances in the use of IT.

During the past two years, or just a little over, which we have taken to implement the strategy, Hong Kong has become one of the best connected cities in the world. We have witnessed increased private sector investment and development of an advanced telecommunications infrastructure: establishment of an e-business legislative framework and a local public key infrastructure for the conduct of secure electronic transactions: improved public sector efficiency with the launch of the Electronic Service Delivery scheme for the public to transact Government business online: encouraging private sector innovation and emergence of a culture that thrives on innovative e-business applications: and implementing a wide range of promotional activities at the community level.

These measures have already paid dividends in enhancing the e-readiness of our society. Today, one in every two households and companies in Hong Kong has a computer. More than one-third of our people are Internet users. We have over 240 Internet Services Providers operating on a platform with broadband coverage for all commercial buildings and over 95 per cent of households. And we have external connectivity of 44 Gbps which is amongst the highest in Asia, and is set to increase by ten-fold in the next two to three years.

Apart from the 'wired' network, Hong Kong is also a leading user of wireless technologies. Our mobile phone penetration rate at 79 per cent is amongst the highest in the world. There are over seven million e-money smart cards in circulation for use in financial and transportation transactions. This is believed to be the highest smart card utilization in the world. Leading-edge technologies such as 3G mobile communications, digital terrestrial TV and next generation Internet applications will come on stream in the near future, making Hong Kong one of the leading cities in exploiting technologies to drive economic growth.

In our education sector, all schools are connected to the Internet, and over 90 per cent of them are connected by leased lines or broadband. We will be making a capital investment of US$410m, with annual recurrent expenditure of US$70 million, to implement a five-year strategy to drive IT-in-education in schools. We have pledged not only to enhance the IT infrastructure in all schools, but also the IT competency of the teachers and students by providing teacher training and reforming our curriculum. Our target is to have 25 per cent of the school curriculum taught through IT by the 2002/03 school year.

However, if we can't transform the mindset of the people, the disparity between 'have it' and 'use it' will continue to be wide. As the UK research also reveals, despite people's knowledge of computers and the Internet, not everyone understands how IT can empower them. This has left them with a feeling that they don't need it. Indeed, no society is immune from the digital divide without making positive efforts to close the gap. If we ignore the problem today, we will become an outcast of tomorrow's digital economy.

That's why our recently released "2001 Digital 21 IT Strategy" focuses on strengthening people's ability to exploit the digital world. Before I talk about our measures on this front, I would like to briefly introduce our "2001 Digital 21 Strategy". The "2001 Digital 21 Strategy" is aimed at capitalising on Hong Kong's early success in establishing a world class environment for the information economy. Its focus is on promoting further developments in the information economy to improve overall wealth, economic and social prosperity of Hong Kong.

The "2001 Digital 21 Strategy" has identified five key result areas, namely -

- to enhance the world class e-business environment in Hong Kong;
- to build e-government;
- to develop Hong Kong's IT workforce;
- to strengthen the Hong Kong community for digital exploitation; and
- to leverage Hong Kong's strengths in exploitation of enabling technologies.

Under each key result area, we will implement various initiatives to achieve our objectives. We believe that the five key result areas are essential in positioning Hong Kong as a leading digital city in the globally connected world. They are all distinct but at the same time complementing each other.

Focusing on strengthening the community for digital exploitation, we will encourage the public at large to embrace, develop and use e-business and we will specifically target people who have fewer opportunities to use IT in their daily lives, such as senior citizens, housewives and people with disabilities. We will facilitate a change in the cultural environment to enable everyone in Hong Kong to embrace innovative applications of new technologies and to ensure widespread access to the Internet, computers, telecommunications and other IT services.

In practice, we will improve IT awareness and knowledge by putting emphasis on educating the community in the use of IT. We will conduct annual surveys to measure the use of IT in the community.

Already our territory-wide free training and awareness programs for the senior citizens, housewives and people with disabilities have met with overwhelming response. Since the programs were launched last October, we have trained over 18,000 people in basic computer skills, surfing the Internet and sending and receiving e-mail. We will introduce more of these activities, targeting the groups we have identified so that they will be able to fully benefit from the development of new technologies.

In addition, we will ensure that web sites and electronically-generated content are made accessible to all groups in Hong Kong including those with disabilities. In collaboration with the IT industry and taking international standards as reference, we have drawn up a set of guidelines for best practice web development and information economy transactions. These standards will be enforced in all Government related web sites, and steps have also been taken to encourage the private sector to adopt the guidelines through public education.

While new technological developments can sometimes alienate different groups from participating in the information economy, there are technologies and solutions that specifically target the common barriers to greater community involvement. Examples of such technologies include web-based electronic mail, which allows access to e-mail or voice-mail via public access terminals or Internet cafes; mobile Internet, which removes the need for access to a PC for certain simple transactions and services; multi-lingual translation, which allows access to information and transactions for people only fluent in a single language; and voice recognition technology, which allows voice input into computer systems instead of using keyboard or keypad. As part of this initiative, we will identify key enabling technology solutions that promote greater accessibility and encourage the private sector to commercialize them for developing market applications.

To enhance accessibility of the community to IT and the Internet, we have set up Cyberpoints at community halls, public libraries, post offices and district offices which have installed computer facilities for free use by members of the public. We have also set up dedicated Cyberpoints for the blind and the visually impaired with specially designed facilities like screen enlarging devices, power braille, voice synthesizer software and large size flat LCD monitor.

Ladies and gentlemen, this briefly sums up what we are doing to try to overcome digital divide and strengthen our community for digital exploitation. In the process we are making Hong Kong Asia's world city. I'm sure every economy has its own way to address the problem. I hope that the presentation I have just made can serve to stimulate you to give further thought to this important subject and to encourage cross-fertilization of ideas. I am sure we will all benefit from sharing good practices and I hope this will also enable the Forum to consider ways to synergise individual efforts to help alleviate the problem of digital divide across the Asia-Pacific Region.

Thank you.

- ENDS -

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