Cultural issues such as distrust of the technology
There are still those persons who have a basic distrust of the technology. This is proving to be in some cases a reason for not having or allowing access to the Internet and associated technology.

Illiteracy
The literacy rate for Jamaica is estimated to be around 87.9 percent. That means about 12.1 percent of the population can't read or write. This is a major deterrent when it comes to closing the digital gap between the rich and the poor in Jamaica.

Gender
Gender also poses another hurdle in closing the gap. With an estimated 46.3 percent of Jamaica's households headed by women, many of whom are living below the poverty line, the focus is not on getting access to ICT, but on daily survival. In a presentation by Satoko Nadamoto entitled "Gender and ICTs: Empowerment of Women in Telecentres in Jamaica," it was reported that the ratio of Jamaican women to men who had Internet access was 9 percent and 39 percent respectively; while computer ownership was put at 39 percent by women and 56 by men.

Is there hope?
Is there hope for bridging the digital divide in Jamaica? Yes. For example, in 2003 the government tried to put steps in place to address this issue. They placed Internet kiosks in many post offices, where anyone could have access by paying a small fee. Unfortunately this venture did not last due to the difficulty of maintaining the computers; the only successful one was the Liguanea Cyber Centre.

Although a noteworthy cause, there are many who feel the attempt at bridging the gap would have been more successful if libraries were used instead of post offices. Libraries are already seen as a source of information and they generally have on staff persons who are trained to offer information literacy instruction.

Fortunately most libraries, even those in out-of-the-way rural areas now have Internet access, and many have high-speed access.

Interestingly, according to an article published in The World Information Society Report 2007, "Jamaica is the first middle income country to break the theoretical 100 percent mobile penetration barrier." This makes the country's mobile subscription rate higher than Japan's. Almost every single one of Jamaica's 2.6 million people (including children) own a cellular phone or two. In 2005, there were 2.75 million mobile subscribers on the island.

A number of initiatives by government, civil society, non-governmental agencies, and overseas groups are working to help bridge the gap. By starting in the schools, The Harvard Berkman Center for Internet Society, and Teens for Technology are two US-based organizations working to help bridge the digital divide in Jamaica. These organizations have donated computers, software, and their time, to hundreds of Jamaican schools in order to ensure more children have access to computers.

As worthy as many of the efforts at closing the digital divide between the haves and the have-nots in Jamaica are, much more needs to be done.

For more than 20 years, David Gewirtz, the author of Where Have All The Emails Gone? and The Flexible Enterprise, has analyzed current, historical, and emerging issues relating to technology, competitiveness, and policy. David is the Editor-in-Chief of the ZATZ magazines, is the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, and is a member of the instructional faculty at the University of California, Berkeley extension. He can be reached at david@zatz.com.