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E-Mexico Marks Country's Entrance into the Digital Age

Mexico's president announced a plan this week to build 250 digital community centers throughout the country.

SEATTLE -- President Vicente Fox declared his intention to bridge his country's digital divide to more than 400 delegates at Microsoft's Government Leaders Conference. The conference featured presentations from government officials throughout the world.

In a live videoconference, Fox said the digital revolution is comparable to the emergence of agriculture, the invention of the press and the industrial revolution.

Fox's speech came on the heels of an announcement made Wednesday that Mexico entered into a partnership with Microsoft to develop digital community centers in rural parts of the country where Internet access is unavailable.

Fox said he and his technology team have committed to an aggressive agenda to bring more than 2,000 localities in Mexico into the Digital Age by 2006, with computer and Internet access available in even remote regions of the country. Fox said the National e-Mexico System is designed to create social change and economic improvement for the country's 100 million citizens.

"Digitalization is - increasing social and political complexity and calling for radical institutional shifts," he said.

Mexico's plans will focus on social services, education, health and finance, Fox said, adding that the goal is to deliver the first 100 services this year. The initial effort will be in the economic and educational arenas, among others. The president emphasized the importance of small and medium-sized businesses to the county's economic future.

He believes connectivity will encourage business development and job creation. However, Fox said that connectivity alone will not bridge the digital divide. Accomplishing this goal will require coordination, cooperation and the sharing of knowledge, he said.

"The challenge is to include the poor," he said. "The challenge is to reach those communities that have not been included in the intense efforts of development in our country."

As a developing nation, computer use and Internet access throughout Mexico is very low -- estimated at about 13 percent nationwide -- and focused mainly in Mexico City and other urban areas. However, this trend could change, said Ricardo Adame, international public relations manager for Microsoft, noting that the purchase of PCs for home use is on the rise.

Adame also said the nation's local telephone provider, Telmex, started offering free access to the Internet through a financing program. Previously, Internet customers had been charged by the minute for Internet access -- a practice that plagues adoption in many countries.

Fox said he believes technology holds both threat and benefit for countries such as his. If the effort is not designed democratically, he said, technology could exacerbate the digital divide -- pushing some people further into isolation and poverty. In Mexico, a lack of access to technology is impacting the abilities of some companies to compete.

"We need to find new tools to reduce historical obstacles," he said, calling for nations to share best practices and legal frameworks. "The new Web of information available is clashing with hierarchical government structures. It requires the development of broader and more flexible organizational models."

Fox said his government -- and other developing nations -- will rely on partnerships with global leaders in the private sector to deliver 21st century government. Under the agreement with Microsoft, 250 digital community centers will be built in areas of "high social marginality," according to a joint announcement.

Microsoft will provide Windows products and training for 4,000 operators. The entire program should result in 2,445 "technology rooms" for the public.

In the wake of the announcement, Microsoft critics raised concerns about the company's outreach to developing countries -- charging that the effort will result in committing targeted governments to using Microsoft products instead of open-source alternatives such as Linux operating systems.

At the close of the conference, Microsoft founder Bill Gates responded to questions about the value of open-source software to countries just entering the digital arena.

He admitted there was a place for sharing of free and open systems but suggested that wide adoption might stifle innovation in the IT marketplace. Gates said developing countries could economically benefit from a strong IT industry that produces and markets new applications.

The ability to commercialize technologies will create jobs, he said.

"I don't mean to be facetious," he said, "but it's hard for me to defend capitalism, because it seems to work."

President Fox said he hopes the partnership with the company will do precisely that. He said he is counting on technology to bring stability to Mexico -- a country with a wide gap between the 'haves and have-nots.'

"For both developed and developing countries, it is paramount to start building bridges that allow us to move from a digitally divided world to a digitally shared one," he said in his speech.

Microsoft is licensing its operating system and Encarta software to Mexico under the same terms it offers to educational institutions. The agreement is reportedly worth $6.5 million U.S. dollars, or 60 million Mexican pesos.

Darby Patterson, Editor in Chief