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Digital Inclusion

Chinese rural ICT project hits US$18 million mark

By Captain Wang | 22 September 2009

A two-year project to bridge the urban-rural digital divide in Yunnan Province in southern China has seen RMB 124 million (US$18 million) spent so far in the creation of the ‘Yunnan Digital Village’, an integrated information network that will serve as a ‘living dictionary’ for the area’s 44 million residents.

The project, which began in 2007, is China’s first full-service integrated network platform to be built in a rural area, and is designed to bring information technology to 16 cities, 129 counties and 130,000 villages in the province.

However, the project still faces a number of challenges.

Du Jian-hui , Director of Department of Agriculture and Market and Economic Information Department, Yunnan Province, told FutureGov that details of construction still needed to be ironed out, and the relationship between government, the industry and citizens better defined to ensure that the project succeeds.

Yunnan Digital Village will enable information exchange for agricultural projects, alerting systems for agricultural market trading and a utility tracking system for farmers. Du added the project could prove to be a model for other rural areas in China to follow. However, he did not give a completion date.

The initiative was devised by Intel, which provided consulting services as well as technology and engineering solutions.

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