BRAZIL: Women Turning Backs on Information Technology Studies

Women are increasingly abandoning information technology courses in Brazil, in line with a global tendency, warns the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC) and women professors in the field.

ARGENTINA: Software, a Growing Success Story

Software production and information technology services are a rapidly expanding industry in Argentina. This industry has a number of advantages: it is clean, requires little investment, provides employment for highly qualified personnel, and can operate in even the poorest regions.

BRAZIL-US: Social Activist Declined Invitation to Meet Bush

Rodrigo Baggio, founder of one of the best social inclusion projects in Brazil, which has spread to eight other countries, turned down an invitation to meet President George W. Bush during his recent visit to Sao Paulo.

ECONOMY-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Getting in Touch with Mobile Phones

Only a decade ago many southern Africans thought a mobile phone was a luxury reserved for rich chief executives of multinational companies.

CUBA: Snail’s-Pace Internet Is Washington’s Fault

Authorities in Cuba blame the U.S. embargo for the high local cost of Internet connections, and for the serious problems in web services in this socialist Caribbean island nation.

TECHNOLOGY-AFRICA: A Rural-Urban Digital Divide Challenges Women

Janet Malika owes her success to the little gadget that is her cell phone. Formerly a struggling food hawker in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, she has become a cafeteria owner since acquiring the device about five years ago, and using it to conduct business.

MEDIA-ZIMBABWE: From Turning Pages to Downloading Them

Piles of fast-selling newspapers on many a street corner, with early morning queues of commuters killing time reading and discussing the day's top stories... This scene from the 1980s and 1990s in Zimbabwe is now a distant memory, recognisable only to older urbanites.

ENVIRONMENT: Cell Phones Getting Greener

Cellular telephones that contain toxic chemicals are still being sold in Latin America and other developing regions. But thanks to strict European regulations, there are progressively fewer phones being made with cadmium, lead and other dangerous materials.

BRAZIL: Cell Phones – Democratising Communications

Rapid expansion in the poorer sectors of society, especially among the large number of informal workers, has taken the number of mobile phones in Brazil to over 100 million, equivalent to more than 53 percent of the population.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Brazil to Join Digital TV World

In a country as addicted to television as Brazil, disputes over digital TV, which is being installed this year, are naturally acerbic. The business is worth an estimated 50 billion dollars, and could bring profound social and cultural changes.

HEALTH-AFRICA: The Promise and Problems of Telemedicine

As the 11th annual conference of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth drew to a close Wednesday in Cape Town, South Africa, the ability of Africa to adopt and sustain telemedicine to improve delivery of health care in under-serviced rural areas came under discussion.

AFRICA: For Good Health, Think eHealth

The 11th conference of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (ISfTeH) kicked off Monday at the International Convention Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, where delegates from around the globe gathered to discuss the benefits and challenges that eHealth (electronic health) offers to both the developed and developing world.

SCIENCE: Developing Nations Urged to Join Forces in R&D

Developing countries, which lack the industrialised world's capacity for technological investment, are going to have to look to innovative solutions and collective initiatives if they expect to overcome their problems and address the basic needs of their people.

LATIN AMERICA: Warning – Used Cell Phones

Although mobile telephony has seen exponential growth in Latin America, the region lacks integrated policies for handling used and obsolete cellular telephones, which are manufactured with materials that are toxic to the environment and human health.

TECHNOLOGY-INDIA: Cyber Coolies Bridge Digital Divide

When Deepak Jagdish, a young Indian student of computer science, explained to Bill Gates last month the complex navigation and processing system of new software, which mimics the echo location system used by bats, to assist visually challenged individuals move about safely, the founder of Microsoft remarked: ''I have never seen something like this''.

MEDIA: A New Glasnost for Linking Citizens and Power in Globalised Era

Glasnost - meaning "openness", from the Russian words for "public" and "voice" - may be a throwback to the 1980s, but it fits the challenge of communication the today's globalised world.

DEVELOPMENT: Giving Takes Smart New Ways

Michael Karlin, co-founder of Security First, the first Internet bank, retired in 1999. He was 31.

SCIENCE-SOUTH AFRICA: From "Publish or Perish" to "Publish and Vanish"

"Publish or perish" is the warning given many academics at the start of their careers. But it's publication of a very particular kind that scholarly researchers crave.

DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Making Money Where the Rubber Hits the (Virtual) Road

The three-roomed workshop in Korogocho, an informal settlement in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, is littered with pieces of old car tires. A pungent smell of rubber is in the air, but workers here have learned to ignore the odour.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: Website Opens Tsunami Aid to Public Scrutiny

As survivors in Asia struggle to rebuild after last December's devastating tsunami, a new window of hope has opened in cyberspace for four affected countries.

COMMUNICATION: Media Democracy Must Sprout From the Grassroots

Civil society must lead the democratisation of the media, an issue that was barely touched on at the recent World Summit on the Information Society, said participants at an international meeting in the Chilean capital.