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New Technologies:
Empowerment for Equality*

The Digital Divide

Leonardo Calvo Cárdenas.
Vice President, Progressive Arc Party (Parp)
National Vice Coordinator, Citizen’s Commitee for Racial Integration (CIR)
Cuban Representative, IDENTIDADES
Havana, Cuba

T

he so-called digital divide is one more
manifestation of multiple inequalities, differences and disadvantages that characterize the modern world, a world in which a segment
of the population has access and the ability to enjoy the greatest advances and measures of wellbeing, while another segment lacks these to a
greater or lesser degree.
This abyss is greater or smaller depending on development levels and, is automatically revealed in
new information and communication technologies that mark the path to social and cultural progress.
Above all, the digital divide is determined by the
degree of access to the Internet and the real ability
to use modern computers, cell phone and intelligent telephony, broadband and other capacities,
all of which currently result in and define people’s and group’s ability to develop personally,
socially and culturally.
According to Internet WorldStats, of the
1,966,000,000 Internet users who connected to
the web in 2010, almost 63% of them lived in industrialized countries, where only 15% of the
world’s population