Getting Better Connected: Volunteers Bridge the Digital Divide

If you find your way to e-Volunteerism and then to this article, you have done some things which many of us readily take for granted and increasingly do without thinking. 

For a start, you will have some kind of electronic device which you know how to use and connect to the internet. You will have a power supply and own a suite of software which helps you make sense of a load of data that is processed using complex instructions so that it becomes understandable. Having access to information and communication technologies (ICT) and the skills to use them, plus the required levels of connectivity, have become social and economic necessities. Yet a persistent digital divide between countries, households, individuals, communities, or organisations maintains a level of social inequality. This divide needs to be bridged so that everybody benefits, regardless of who they are or where they live.

Many volunteers, often information professionals in their day jobs, are doing much to try and close this gap. This Along the Web shares some of their stories. Whether they teach coding, organise hackathons, or recondition outdated hardware, both virtual and real-world volunteers are doing their best to ensure that nobody is left out of the digital changes transforming our societies for both good and ill.