Asia: 70% Rural:  New Insights to Commercial and Policy Models for Connecting the Next Billion.

Unlike the mature markets of the world, Asia has 65-70% of its population outside of metropolitan centers.  Distributed and diverse, these populations are still largely ‘in the divide’. Public policy and entrepreneurial environments around ICT, need to shift there focus out of metropolitan cities, if the bulk of Asia’s population is to be harnessed and have their living standards raised.

Aside from the desire of ICT literacy and access for these people, Public and Private sector need to take harder policy & strategy decisions for ICT led development of rural communities. Recent technology advances, shifts in Public-Private policies and rural trials from Intel’s World Ahead program are providing us very promising insights to a functional answers to connecting the next billion, and accelerating the digital-economy in rural populations.

Leighton Phillips, Director, APAC Region, Intel in his paper today afternoon titled “Rural-Suburban WiMAX Solutions for South Asia” will share these insights and pose some hard hitting questions for industry and policy-makers to think about to.