South Africa: Information And Media

Black consortiums setting up as telecommunications operators in rural areas will receive subsidies of up to R15m from the Universal Service Agency.
From: Balancing Act

A community radio station in Cape Town lets children take control of the station every Saturday. Children work as receptionists, produce and present their own shows and answer the phones as well.

The Cape Town city council undertook a study in South Africa to find if its citizens and communities were using information and communication technologies for development. The study found a wide digital divide in the city and also that a majority of the people do not have phones and access to a computer.

As the South African government considers wider provision of wireless internet access, one civil society leader cautions that efforts to foster socio-economic development do not entrench or deepen inequalities.

History is being made with the release of computer software which has been translated into a number of South Africa's official languages. Translate.org.za has spent two years developing the software in Zulu, Sepedi and Afrikaans. Speaking before the launch, the organisation's director said that "this is the first Africans-helping-Africans, no strings attached, Free Software word processor."

The draft ICT Empowerment Charter of South Africa is now empowered with inputs from the civil society organisations as they brought out their recommendations on the Charter. The crucial role of the development sector in bridging the digital divide has been raised in this submission.

The Go Open Source is a South Africa-wide campaign aimed at raising awareness about open source software (OSS) amongst non-specialist information technology (IT) users. The message of the campaign is that of choice and the advantages of OSS.