ABSTRACT
Networking projects that aim to marry the potentials of information and communications technologies to ensure that innovative technology leads to community development involving civil society are well-intentioned, but tend to reflect polarized social hierarchies of rich versus poor. Organizational models of telecenters and cybercafés involve more than different funding and sustainability strategies in postcolonial societies. Here policy-making elites associate digital escapism with popular and widespread cybercafés and show a preference for mediagenic, government funded telecenters, whose added value is essentially training and demand creation. Official telecenters struggle because local buy-in is scarce, while telecenters anchored in the community, a distinct and rare breed, can survive only when a core of local champions provides staffing, continuity, and legitimacy. Government telecenters are often dumping grounds for large and lucrative hardware and software purchase contracts negotiated far from the village; maintenance is minimal and local teachers and health workers are often expected to administer the “digital cargo,” dropped from above, without salary incentives. This pattern may be observed throughout Latin America, and overlooks how an alternative model, mom-and-pop cyber-cafés linked to microbanks, may serve as de facto training grounds for youth in remittance economies.
