E-readiness

E-Readiness is the ability to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to develop one's economy and to foster one's welfare.

There are several benchmarking indices at the macro (also called global, universal, etc) level, e.g., those calculated by the UNPAN, World Bank, Economist Intelligence Unit etc.

Because what appear on the macro level can hide wide heterogeneity among organizations (educational institutions, government departments, etc.) local areas (cities, towns, etc.) individuals (female, individuals with disabilities, etc.) in digital access, a micro level more detailed benchmarking is suggested to compute sub-measures for networking, applications, web-accessibility and readiness (NAWAR).

E-Readiness indices at the macro level are constructed primarily for ranking countries, facilitating comparisons between countries and overtime. They can also be used to track the global digital divide, i.e. the gap between countries that have access to ICT and those that do not (mainly because of differences in income, education, etc.).

NAWAR is constructed primarily to measure how ICT is actually put to work for development. For example, NAWAR is concerned with the gap between humans with respect to natural / assistive access to ICT in e-business environments, i.e., whether organizations have assistive systems (e.g. Braille keyboards and printers, one-handed keyboards, annotated websites for screen reading software, etc.) and whether organizational cultures adopt green computing. More importantly, because NAWAR is concerned with how ICT is actually put to work for development, attention is given to change in the level of activity, i.e. the move from e-readiness to impact in e-business environments.

Economist Intelligence Unit e-readiness rankings

legend|#b9b9b9|No DataEach year, in cooperation with the IBM Institute for Business Value, the Economist Intelligence Unit produces a ranking of e-readiness across countries, based on six pillars of e-readiness: connectivity & technology infrastructure, business environment, social & cultural environment, legal environment, government policy & vision and consumer & business adoption.

In the 2008 e-readiness rankings, global e-readiness improved for the fourth year in a row, from 6.2 in 2007 to 6.4 in 2008 (out of 10). With Denmark falling from 1st to 5th place, the USA now ranks 1st, Hong Kong 2nd, Sweden 3rd and Australia 4th. The number of countries and territories included in the EIU e-readiness rankings has increased from 68 in 2006 to 70 in 2008, with the inclusion of Malta (2007) and Trindad & Tobago (2008). [cite web
url= http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/25828/20080331202303/graphics.eiu.com/upload/ibm_ereadiness_2008.pdf
title= 2008 EIU e-readiness rankings
publisher= Economist Intelligence Unit
date= 2008 ] [ cite web
url= http://graphics.eiu.com/files/ad_pdfs/2007Ereadiness_Ranking_WP.pdf
title= 2007 EIU e-readiness rankings
publisher= Economist Intelligence Unit
date= 2007 ]

References

See also

* Information and Communication Technologies for Development

External links

* The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries: [http://www.ejisdc.org/ojs2/index.php/ejisdc/article/viewFile/219/184 E-Readiness for Developing Countries]
* Center for International Development at Harvard University: [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/readinessguide/ Readiness for the Networked World — A Guide for Developing Countries]
* [http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/2540/20060424215053/graphics.eiu.com/files/ad_pdfs/2006Ereadiness_Ranking_WP.pdf 2006 E-readiness rankings by the Economist]
* Economist Intelligence Unit [http://www.eiu.com/2005eReadinessRankings 2005 e-readiness rankings]
* Extensive [http://ictlogy.net/bibciter/reports/types_categories.php?idcat=21 bigliographic collection] on e-Readiness