Article 13 Initiative - Blog

We’re now uploading photos for the Shoot Nations photography contest. I’m impressed and very happy with the photos because they are very good and we actually managed to get this far.

We uploaded about two thirds of the photos yesterday and today the cyber cafe donated some computer time for us so we can finish this job once and for all. We ended up creating e-mails for most people, then creating accounts on the Shoot Nations website, and finally started uploading the photos. It took us a total of 18 hours (9 hours each) yesterday and today things are moving a bit faster. It made me think about an interesting problem.

When we think of the digital divide, we often think of a lack of access to computers. This is still a major problem because many people haven’t used computers and do not have access to them. One can help solve this problem by donating computers, generators, and other hardware. However, as we move into an age of Web 2.0 online, where most websites require fast internet connections, new computers, and regular updates for the software they run, a second “digital divide” is forming — that of bandwidth. SHOFCO, for example, has a number of talented photographers who stand a chance at winning prizes in a photography contest, and they now have cameras they can use to participate. The only problem now is that uploading a high quality photo can take up to an hour or two, which is much too expensive for almost everyone.