Information and Communications Technologies inLatin America
Rodrigo Santos Executive Secretary-CLEI
Dept. de Ingeniería Eléctrica y ComputadorasUniversidad Nacional del Sur-CONICET
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Introduction
CLEI is the Latin American Center of Studies inInformatics
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Introduction
CLEI is the Latin American Center of Studies inInformatics
CLEI organizes every year the most importantconference in the region where researchers andpractitioners can exchange experiences andknowledge
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Introduction
CLEI is the Latin American Center of Studies inInformatics
CLEI organizes every year the most importantconference in the region where researchers andpractitioners can exchange experiences andknowledge
We will try to describe a complex reality and indoing so determine the Latin American profile inICTs.
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Introduction
In the last decade and specially in the last five years,there has been an increasing interest in all thegovernments of the regions to promote the ICTs.
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Introduction
In the last decade and specially in the last five years,there has been an increasing interest in all thegovernments of the regions to promote the ICTs.
Almost all the countries have created a specialofficial Secretary to led the politics in this field
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Introduction
In the last decade and specially in the last five years,there has been an increasing interest in all thegovernments of the regions to promote the ICTs.
Almost all the countries have created a specialofficial Secretary to led the politics in this field
However the real investment and attention paid tothe new technologies have not reached the samelevel in all these countries producing importantasymmetries within the region
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Common guidelines in LA
Promotion of the national industry to be competitive.
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Common guidelines in LA
Promotion of the national industry to be competitive.
General access to technology services and education
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Common guidelines in LA
Promotion of the national industry to be competitive.
General access to technology services and education
Lifelong learning and introduction of ICTs in thecurricula.
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Common guidelines in LA
Promotion of the national industry to be competitive.
General access to technology services and education
Lifelong learning and introduction of ICTs in thecurricula.
Recreation of the national identity through thesupport to the main areas that contribute to it
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Common guidelines in LA
Development and support of e-government, e-healthand e-commerce
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Common guidelines in LA
Development and support of e-government, e-healthand e-commerce
Promotion of projects of R&D on ICTs at theuniversities
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Common guidelines in LA
Development and support of e-government, e-healthand e-commerce
Promotion of projects of R&D on ICTs at theuniversities
General access to technology services and education
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Common guidelines in LA
Development and support of e-government, e-healthand e-commerce
Promotion of projects of R&D on ICTs at theuniversities
General access to technology services and education
Creation of a new infrastructure to connect theprivate networks with the public and academic ones
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Common guidelines in LA
In many cases, as there is not a real state policy,programs live for the duration of the person who hascreated them.
This difficults the search for information about thissubject because although still alive the programshave no financial support and are not valid anymore.
The basic problem in LA is the lack of ITprofessionals to guide the development of the area.
The number of Phd. or Master graduates in the areais a clear indication of the lack of interest from theproductive sector.
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Description of the actions taken bythe different countries
CLEI counts with representatives in 11 countries ofLA:
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa RicaColombia, Ecuador, Mexico, ParaguayPeru, Uruguay, Venezuela.
There is a great heterogeneity in the actions taken byall these countries.
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Description of the actions taken bythe different countries
It is important to remark the Yahoo Research Centerin Santiago in Chile.
ParqueSoft in Colombia as a project to generate theSoftware industry in Colombia.
The important impact in the economy that theSoftware industry has in Costa Rica or Uruguay inrelation to the GDP.
Argentina has a National Law that regulates theSoftware Industry with special tax incentives forthose companies that export their products and doresearch.
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ICTs in Numbers in LA
Region-Income group
LA &
Caribeean
High Upper-
middle
Lower-
middle
Economic and social context
Population, total (millions) 541 1,001 576 2,430
Urban population (% of total population) 72 77 77 49
Poverty (% of population < US$ 1 per day) 9.5 – – –
GNI per capita 3,600 32,040 4,770 1,580
GDP growth, 1995-2000 and 2000-4 1.5 2.0 2.7 5.7
Adult literacy rate (% ages 15 and over) 89 – 94 90
School enrollment (% gross) 80 93 82 72
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ICTs in Numbers in LA
Region-Income group
LA &
Caribeean
High Upper-
middle
Lower-
middle
Government priorization of ICT (scale 1-7) 3.5 4.9 4.1 3.8
Access
Telephone main lines (per 1,000 people) 181 558 220 192
International voice traffic (min per person) – – 39 –
Mobile subscribers (per 1,000 people) 324 767 490 255
Population covered by mobile telephony (%) 76 98 84 76
Internet users (per 1,000 people) 104 480 133 70
Personal computers (per 1,000 people) 75 504 99 38
Households with television (%) 88 98 92 89 . – p.10/21
ICTs in Numbers in LA
Region-Income group
LA &
Caribeean
High Upper-
middle
Lower-
middle
Quality
Telephone faults (per 100 main lines per year)– – 20.3 –
Broadband subscribers (per 1,000 people) 5.2 126.2 3.7 12.6
International Internet bandwidth (bits per per-
son)
165 4,718 176 58
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ICTs in Numbers in LA
Region-Income group
LA &
Caribeean
High Upper-
middle
Lower-
middle
Affordability
Price basket for fixed line (US$ per month,
residential)
9.1 25.8 13.9 5.5
Price basket for mobile (US$ per month) 9.1 17.8 11.1 8.9
Price basket for Internet (US$ per month) 31.5 20.9 20.8 25.3
Price of call to United States (US$ per 3 min-
utes)
0.9 0.77 1.03 1.45
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ICTs in Numbers in LA
Region-Income group
LA &
Caribeean
High Upper-
middle
Lower-
middle
Institutional efficiency and sustainability
Total telecommunications revenue (% of
GDP)
3.3 2.9 3.4 3.6
Total telephone subscribers per employee – 485 402 195
Total telecommunications investment (% of
revenue)
– 12.3 18.6 25.5
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ICTs in Numbers in LA
Region-Income group
LA &
Caribeean
High Upper-
middle
Lower-
middle
ICT applications
ICT expenditure (% of GDP) 5.3 7.1 5.0 5.1
E-government readiness index (scale 0-1) 0.39 0.7 0.49 0.26
Secure Internet servers (per 1 million people)8.6 311.4 10.7 1.6
Schools connected to the Internet (%) – 99 60 –
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ICTs in Numbers in LA
Country Universities Industry Abroad Total
Argentina 55 5 40 100Brazil 1080 100 20 1200Chile 65 15 20 100Colombia 40 5 15 60Costa Rica 20 2 8 30Cuba 18 2 10 30
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ICTs in Numbers in LA
Country Universities Industry Abroad Total
Mexico 470 30 100 600Peru 20 – 10 30Uruguay 15 5 15 35Venezuela 40 5 15 60Others 10 10 2 22Total 1833 169 263 2265
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Academic Projection
The average ratio will be 8 researchers per millioninhabitants with Costa Rica with 15 on one extremeand Peru with little more than 2 on the other.
The basic problem for the region is the financialsupport for the graduate students.Scholarships arenot enough.
The graduate studies are not economically atractive.
There is little projection after the Phd degree isobtained on the industrial sector.
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Academic Projection
Lack of inversion of the private sector on researchand development.
The brain-drain problem complicates the situation ofsome of the countries.
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Common Programs and Activities
CLARA: It is a broadband network interconnectingacademic institutions of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,Colombia, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador,Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama,Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
CLARA is connected to GEANT in Europe throughthe ALICE project.
CONECTAT-E: Academic project presented forevaluation at CYTED involving 12 countries and 16research groups from LA and Spain.
Many other individual efforts from different researchgroups with Europe or the United States.
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Conclusions
The situation is neither bad nor good
There is a consumer approach at the moment thatimplies a lot of employment at the service sector ofthe economy related to the communications(telephone main lines and mobile ones)
The research activity in the area is poor with verylittle impact at world level.
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Conclusions
The number of Phd. graduates is not very high, theavailable postgraduate programs is not enough andthe amount of money invested by governments forfinancing this kind of studies is low.
There is an incipient activity but that is still far fromtransforming the region from an ICT consumer to anICT producer.
The situation can be improved if more financing isavailable to sustain projects related to ICTs andspecial incentives are given to the researchersworking in this area.
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