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individuals generally have a better chance of fi nding employment as well as
higher earning potential (UNCTAD 2009, 57). Bridging the connectivity
divide is critical to ensuring that today’s students—and tomorrow’s hightech
workforce—can take advantage of these benefi ts.
One way to expand access to broadband and ICTs in rural and remote
areas is through the deployment of mobile education labs. These labs, which
may simply be vehicles fi tted with broadband connectivity, computer equipment,
and learning facilities, allow educators to drive to various schools
throughout the week (Samudhram 2010). In addition, mobile education
labs can provide ICT training for adults to improve digital literacy. As
opposed to transporting children in rural areas to where broadband facilities
exist or waiting until the network is built out to them, mobile facilities
off er a cost-eff ective way to reach rural populations. The United Nations has
noted the success of mobile schools in Mongolia, where 100 mobile “tent”
schools have been introduced in 21 provinces, as well as in Bolivia (United
Nations 2010). Bolivia has implemented a bilingual education program for
three of the most widely used indigenous languages, which has been
expanded to include indigenous children in remote areas. In Morocco, the
government implemented a program called NAFID@ to help over 100,000
teachers to aff ord wireline or mobile broadband connections, which has
allowed teachers to receive training in the use of ICTs in the classroom as
well as to use e-learning programs and online libraries to improve class lessons
(Intel 2010).
Health Care Sector: Improving Health and Medical Outcomes
Health-based broadband applications and services are signifi cantly improving
health and medical outcomes around the world, particularly for patients
in remote areas and those with limited mobility, through e-health and
m-health initiatives (WHO 2005). Considering that there are fewer than 27
million doctors and nurses for the more than 6 billion people in the world—
and only 1.2 million doctors and nurses in the lowest-income countries—
harnessing mobile technologies is a valuable tool for enabling health care
practitioners to reach patients. As mobile broadband develops and spreads
in developing countries, the benefi ts are already becoming clear (box 1.3).
Although basic voice and data connections can be useful in improving
health and medical care, broadband connectivity is necessary to capture the
full potential of e-health services, including telemedicine, which enables
real-time audio and video communications between patients and doctors as
well as between health care providers. Improvements in telemedicine and
other e-health initiatives rely on increasing bandwidth capacity, more storage
and processing capabilities, and higher levels of security to protect
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