Romulo to bridge the digital divide

E-Asean Task Force chairman Roberto Romulo was recently named the incoming head of the Digital Bridge Task Force of the Global Business Dialogue on E-Commerce (GBDe), an organization representing 72 of the world’s leading companies involved in electronic commerce.

The GBDe created the Digital Bridge Task Force early this year to help close the so-called digital divide between rich and poor nations.

Acting on the recommendation of the task force, members of the Group of 8 (G-8) industrial nations announced the creation of a program to address the digital divide. Called the Dot Force initiative, the program will help coordinate information technology development efforts of the private sector, governments, and other institutions.

During the second annual meeting of the GBDe in Miami last week, Romulo outlined an aggressive agenda for additional progress in bridging the digital divide over the next year.

These include interaction with national and regional entities involved in e-commerce policy development, the completion of the task force’s "clearinghouse" project which will identify best practices from the various digital bridge projects being undertaken by GBDe members for replication, and a policy module of model rules and standards on e-commerce.

In addition, GBDe will work on identifying and developing consensus views on policy elements of particular interest to emerging economies, such as on information infrastructure.

"In considering these issues, we will be mindful of the need to integrate solutions to the digital divide to the wider development agenda of emerging economies in order that these can be made sustainable and be given the political priority that they deserve," Romulo said. "There is the danger of being enamored with technology for its own sake or for selling it as the panacea for all the world’s problems instead of seeing it as the enabling tool that it really is."

GBDe was mentioned in the G-8 Okinawa Charter on Information Technology as one of the private sector groups that will be involved in the Dot Force. The other is the World Economic Forum. As chairman of the Digital Bridges group, Romulo is expected to be the primary figure for the GBDe with the Dot Force.