Subject: So. Studies/Sciences: U.S./World Issues

Global Issues Series

Digital Divide: The Hole in the Wall

Platinum Award -Worldfest Houston
The Gabriel Award -NCAC
Best Documentary -Athens Film Festival
Best of Fest -Sarasota Film Festival
Outstanding Story about South Asia -SAJA
"Recommended. This program takes viewers to the streets of New Delhi, India, where Indian researcher Sugata Mitra places a high-speed computer in a wall near an Indian slum that ends with intriguing results: within hours, and without instruction, children begin browsing the Internet, read the news, download games, and listen to music. As a result, Dr. Mitra, the scientist who pioneered the use of IT to educate slum children, has been conferred the 2005 Dewang Mehta Award for Innovation in Information Technology." -EMRO Review
A revolution in information technology is redefining poverty, as how much you know is becoming just as important as how much you own. This multi-award winning documentary examines one possible solution to the growing technological gap between rich and poor - the so-called "digital divide" - that threatens to consign millions to an "information underclass." When Indian researcher Sugata Mitra embedded a high-speed computer in a wall separating his firm's New Delhi headquarters from an adjacent slum, he discovered that slum children quickly taught themselves how to surf the net, read the news, and download games and music. Mitra then replicated the experiment in other locations. Each time the results were similar: within hours, and without instruction, the children began browsing the Internet. Here we see how children, given only access and opportunity, teach themselves the rudiments of computer literacy with no instruction; also we discover that the spread of information technology is changing societies around the world, and the implications of Mitra's experiment are profound, especially for poor people. Produced by Globalvision, Inc. 08DR JSCA 52 min.
Also See: Daily Life and People in India Series