CIF Home > Background
The Digital Opportunity Index (DOI) as designed by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is a tool for tracking progress in bridging the digital divide, utilising indicators that have been grouped into three clusters - Opportunity, Infrastructure, and Utilisation1. Although, with respect to the DOI, countries such as Barbados, The Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis rank in the top fifty countries, throughout the Caribbean there tends to be a discrepancy among the three measured clusters. Opportunity, as measured by indicators such as the percentage of the population using mobile cellular technology and the Internet access tariffs as a percentage of per capita income, far outweighs access to the Infrastructure, and the actual Utilisation of information and communication technologies by the general population. This is in sharp contrast to countries such as Korea and Singapore where the DOI is relatively high due to the balance among the three clusters.
The effective use of technology for development is an ongoing issue that is particularly important to developing regions of the world, such as the Caribbean, that face several barriers to access. These barriers to inclusion typically include: limitations in capacity and reach of the existing fixed line telecommunications network, service affordability, low levels of ICT literacy, poor accessibility to information, low innovative capacities, and limited promotion of the use of information and communication technologies.
The main objective of the 6th Annual Caribbean Internet Forum, CIF, "The Mobile Internet for Development", is to explore solutions to address perceived imbalances and barriers. It will pay specific attention to facilitating access to the underlying infrastructure, and the effective and innovative use of technologies by the peoples of the Caribbean. The Forum will look specifically at the use of low-cost wireless technologies, and the application of these technologies within underserved communities in the Caribbean. It will explore the innovative use of the Internet for promoting economic and social development within the Caribbean with a specific focus on the use of mobile technologies.
1 The WSIS DOI is available on the International Telecommunications Unit website at http://www.itu.int/doi/