A Framework to overcome disability digital divide in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The term digital divide was introduced in the 1990s to define the gap between those who have access to new forms of information and communication technologies (ICTs) from those who do not have access . Due to a disability some people are getting disadvantage of accessing Information Technology. This problem is known by the disability digital divide. Disability is a main issue in Sri Lanka due to 30 years of civil war in the country. Therefore disability digital divide is a pertinent research problem for Sri Lanka. Researcher has proved with two initial surveys with including 314 and 180 sample set Sri Lanka is having a disability digital divide problems. First phase of these study two set of samples were interviewed to identify the current disability digital divide in the country. Initially 314 participants were interviewed and in the second set of sample including with 180 disabled participants. Findings indicated that an ICT technology used by the differently abled community is low in Sri Lanka. Therefore this study proposes a framework to overcome disability digital divide in the country. This framework consists with different dimensions to overcome the disability digital divide such as Technology consideration, Government intervention and Policy implementation, Social and Cultural intervention and economical intervention. Propose solutions are including with web site standard development and implementations, user friendliness of software development, Infrastructure development issues, Social and cultural changers, Financial support for specially people having with disability. In addition to that training and development on technology will be helpful to overcome disability digital divide.