Russia - Keeping Pace with the Development?

Russia - Keeping Pace with the Development? David Levin (FoRSIS, Novosibirsk, Russia) Yes, Russia is keeping pace with the development of ICT, sure signs of it are · Dynamics of absolute numbers growth, and · Serious plans of further increasing the Russian overall ICT level along with overcoming of its internal Digital Divide. In Russia, there is obviously serious and profound understanding of key importance of digital development of society. It is seen: · On official federal state level, · As the most promising part of the market, and · Through fundamental aspects of cultural life of society. Overall Russian ICT Dynamics is rather high. Consider shortly telephony and Internet. Telephony: Data of Russian Ministry of Communication (June 2001): Traditional telephone operators sell their services on about $4 billions per year, Growth of phones: 1.000.000 in cities, 70.000 in villages per year, Number of mobile phones: 4.7 millions; accessible in 79 from 89 Russian regions. Internet: Today - about 6 millions users. According to http://spylog.ru (leading Russian Internet statistic researcher & provider), growth of Runet in 2000 was 250-300% and 400-450% for users and sites correspondingly. Absolute numbers are still much lower than in most developed countries but dynamics is higher. See for example dynamics of some Internet characteristics from 1998 to 2001 (http://www.yandex.ru/chisla): There is rather developed network of Internet sites of companies, mass media, administrations, diverse institutions, political parties, etc. All more or less famous persons have their own pages. All more or less meaningful data is already accessible: including literature, museums, art, e-shopping, travel, etc. Search machine adjusted to morphological flexibility of Russian language (http://yandex.ru, http://rambler.ru) are very popular and effective. Indirect, unofficial and illegal access to ICT makes official Russian indices much higher. For example, 60% of Internet users in Moscow never pay their personal access since they do it in their offices (http://www.emedia.ru). Number of women - Internet users is rapidly increasing (10 times during 1999-2001) - now about 40% of all users. Digital Divide as the explicit problem is obviously recognized in Russia. In November 2000, Russian government organized a conference "Problems of Overcoming Digital Divide in Russia and FSR"(http://www.a-z.ru/gov_house/8/index.htm) with participation of the Prime Minister and greetings from Kofi Annan . Ways of overcoming Digital Divide in Russia are planned within big national programs of IS development. The first steps of the Russian Way to Information Society have been recently outlined by two Federal Programs "Digital Russia: 2002 - 2010" and "Development of Integrated Educational Information Environment" 2002-2006". "Digital Russia: 2002 - 2010" (http://www.e-russia.ru) includes the following directions: · Legal regulations for IS · Informational transparency and openness for civil society · ICT based modernization of federal and municipal management · Cooperation between state and business on application of ICT · Education and development of skilled personnel · Development of infrastructure and public access networks · ICT based support of development of independent mass media · Formation of public support of the Programme. Main objectives of "Development of Integrated Educational Information Environment 2002-2006" (http://www.e-russia.ru/texts/) are: · ICT based improvement of educational quality in Russia, · Equal access to educational opportunities of all levels for Russian citizens Basic resources for the Educational Program are currently estimated as $2 billion, mostly from federal budget. Main aspects of the Programme are: · Intensive development of digital manuals, textbooks, and training facilities · Professional re-training for teachers and administrators in ICT · Mass equipping by ICT of schools of all levels; · Extension and improvement of integrated educational network based on existing infrastructure of Russian scientific-educational Internet network. Implementation both programs must substantially improve public access to computers & Internet. Number of Internet cafe is increasing but in small towns and villages people are not expected to pay for them. The federal programs are planning to organize in small towns and villages about 15 000 so-called open computer rooms based on schools and municipal administrations. *** Computer is taking role of a window to culture earlier kept by Book. That phenomenon has a serious positive impact on social politics, philanthropy, preferences, etc. and serves as a cultural prerequisite for sustainable approach. A saying Education is Light; Illiteracy is Darkness is very quickly becoming associated with computer. Computer is becoming holy, respected object, not necessarily related to pragmatics and actually understood by common people. When politicians, administrators, or businessmen visit a poor region (including Chechnya) they often bring computers as presents. People, who have no idea about what actually computer is, would likely not resist to buying a computer for a school instead of spending money on, say, repair of a shabby school building. Development of Information Society and overcoming of Digital Divide is seen in Russia as actions to be done mainly by means of and for the sake of mass up-to-date education.

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