Around 30 delegates from Zimbabwe, Namibia and Lesotho gathered in Grahamstown in September 2004 for the annual Highway Africa conference. The theme for the 2004 conference, held from September 16th-18th, was: “Media Making the Information Society”.

The delegates, drawn from civil society, academia and the commercial media, and whose attendance had been sponsored by the Heinrich Boll Foundation, participated in a pre-conference workshop to discuss their views on Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in Africa.

ICTs at the grassroots level, and for business

During the discussions, the lack of access to ICTs and information for people at the grassroots level was raised, yet the need to use ICTs to promote democracy – particularly in a country like Zimbabwe – and develop business was felt. Amongst the broad needs were training, localized content, better infrastructure, more information on policy issues, awareness-raising and a need for appropriate applications.

Cost was seen as a major inhibitor to ICTs and business development in the three countries – including the cost (and availability) of hardware, connectivity and maintenance costs.

Amongst the general views was the acknowledgement that “access takes time”, and doesn’t happen overnight and comments like “technology is loud on promise, but poor on delivery”.

Open source needs

Delegates were also asked what they needed from open source (OS), and despite supporting the opportunities OS might offer, a similar skepticism towards OS emerged.

What was needed was awareness-raising, increased access to information on OS, and opportunities, such as courses or workshops, to learn more. “Most people are simply not aware of the availability of open source software,” one delegate said. Others felt there was a psychological dependency on proprietary software: “Microsoft has managed to create a dependency syndrome so that should an uninformed person encounter free software they become skeptical about how effective and genuine that software is.”

Delegates who had had some experience with OS, noted that there were some practical difficulties to overcome: “Some of the programmes are not user-friendly in that they take forever to download. This becomes a big challenge in rural communities where access time limited.”

OS, they said, needed to be localized to suite local conditions. Delegates also wanted proof of the cost-benefits that can be expected from migrating, including the on-going costs of maintenance and training.