What is the scope for developing countries to participate in the digital revolution? Despite the informatics gap between rich and poor, countries of the "South" are offered a number of opportunities if they want to seize them, as shown by several developments, participants reported. However, the problems of infrastructure, competition from industrial nations and training -- both for users and IT producers -- put a number of limitations on the potential of developing countries to immediately seize those opportunities.

Entrepreneurs in developing countries can produce their own equipment at much lower cost than industrial suppliers: from PCs, as in Malaysia (Ismail) to routers, as in Kosovo (Michael Lewis, NY University). However, this could be risky, Lewis commented. Better opportunities exist in the provision of services, from software development and Web design to document processing.

Philippe Monnier pointed to the importance of reputation: Swiss banking depends on this rather than any advantage in services. "Perhaps it is better for developing countries to be subcontractors to start with -- for hardware and software. Every country should specialize in the industry segments in which they enjoy competitive advantages."

Ian Worrell, a Caribbean Internet Service Provider owner now with ITC, suggested the electricity grid could be the basis for a digital economy in developing countries rather than the telephone communication system.

"There is a potential for the mobile phone to become the de facto payment system, partly because of the high cost of credit card use through banks," Paula Swatman pointed out. "A number of telcos have already applied for banking licences, and Deutsche Telekom already has a licence."

"In Latin America there is a saying: when we believe we have all the answers, someone changes all the questions," noted José Soriano. "In our countries, 74% of the infrastructure is in the hands of 4.5% of the population. When we talk about ways of bringing the digital economy to more of the population, we are not talking about something on the scale of the US. The Internet is not mature in our regions. Infrastructure is not a commodity. Services are not a commodity. The country with the most telephones in Latin America reaches only 22%, including mobile phones. In Peru with 1.6 million telephones working, 300,000 are not used because people cannot pay for them. The problems include the scale of the market and monopolies. What we can do is use existing technologies better, which means they must be shared."

"You might find it odd that when I talk of the Internet I discuss the state of our roads, and when I talk about the Web I mention the lack of water. But all these things are interdependent," argued Olufemi Boyede, Managing Director, Koinonia Ventures Ltd, Lagos, Nigeria. "If for 10 hours a day you are not likely to have light in the office, or power at home, this is going to affect your decisions about the digital economy. We went to London to setup our Website because we wanted to be present 24 hours a day. And Nigeria is probably the most advanced of the ECOWAS countries in this respect, second only to South Africa."

Philippe Monnier observed that the power supply issue is only a problem for a Web hosting service. Design could take place in the country itself.

"But a Website has to be updated regularly," Boyede pointed out.

"Lack of a local digital infrastructure does not preclude participation globally," Lewis added. "Nor is a local market a pre-requisite. There are places where 90% of the Web pages are hosted outside the country. And companies in the US are outsourcing activities abroad, at 1/20th of the cost of doing it in the United States."

"Many successful companies have started as sole source contractors for large companies," Dorothy Riddle observed.

Boyede reported: "In my country, the banking community will not fund any project they cannot see, where they can't see how the money is going to come back in three or four months. So the service industry has no access to finance. High interest rates are another limiting factor. The only alternative is to go to bodies that believe in the idea, to governments. Governments must become involved at the introductory stage. For poverty reduction programmes, instead of just offering loans that are not expected to be immediately repaid they could channel part of these funds to banks for developing the e-industry."

Anton Said, Manager, Business Information and Technology, Malta External Trade Corporation, San Gwann, pointed out that "many developing countries are relatively inexperienced in the modern international trade world in the first place, let alone the digital economy. It is necessary that an export culture be instilled in industry."

"Simple tools can be very productive even in the digital economy," noted Ravi Rao, Chief Programme Officer, Commonwealth Secretariat, London. "Email provided a tool for a Maltese textile manufacturer to get design templates from its Netherlands partner and immediately use these for production, saving the high costs of a design engineer and setting up the machines. A plastic mousetrap designed in Norway was the basis of another country's business. But market intelligence remains one of the major problems for developing nations along with finance."

"The strategy is to work with TNCs or MNCs rather than fight them," suggested K. Verma, Executive Director, Electronics Research and Development Centre of India, New Delhi. "They are themselves looking for partners for localization."

B.M. Vyas, Managing Diector, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd, Anand, India, observed: "If you want to become e-competent, it is not enough to focus just on your own company. You need to bring in your whole business network. That means creating a shared vision."

"Governments need to make the business environment conducive to initiatives from the private sector rather than force business to spend its time seeking permissions and licences," said Verma. "They should provide support measures. Malaysia, for example, has concentrated on training and facilitation. They can set up IT parks to overcome the problems of power supply and infrastructure. The 'tiger' Asian countries developed in this way, setting up export zones."

"Is leap-frogging possible? The question can be put in the reverse order: is it possible to ignore the digital economy and technical revolution?" declared Raafat Radwan of the Information and Decision Support Centre, Egypt. "India and Malaysia can provide examples to us of what can be done. India focused on centres of excellence and Malaysia on infrastructure. If we look at knowledge workers, the challenge is to use the brain drain as an opportunity rather than a threat. India has recognized, for example, that it can look at the phenomenon as an export to the US. But we can't leave everything to the private sector."

Governments should not ignore the rising trend towards teleworking, noted Dorothy Riddle. "Companies are turning more and more to hiring people that they never physically need. But teleworkers feel isolated. Sweden has set up telecottages where people can work for different companies but come together."

D. Mpolokoso, Managing Director, Zamnet Communications Systems, Lusaka, Zambia, noted: "My experience is that government is key. It is the only one that can do anything about incentives such as tax breaks, facilitating venture capital, reducing tariffs on trade, regulations that create an environment conducive to this business. Education, whether at the secondary or primary level, that builds capacity for e-commerce is also dependant on the government in most countries."

Carla Gonzalez-Salazar of TextileSolutions GTS AB, Goeteborg, Sweden, warned against basing a strategy on first educating the whole population before acting on e-commerce. "It will take more time to educate a population than get together a group of people who already have ideas to go to the government and talk with it about the measures needed."