Listening to the presentations at Chinwag and UKTI’s Digital Business events last week I found myself transported back to my time at university. Not because I felt like I was sitting in a lecture, but because I wrote my dissertation on the Digital Divide. All the talk of growth and improvements in infrastructure – particularly in India, made me think about just how much has changed and also how this divide is still very prescient in every nation (not just the poorest) 10 years after my graduation. The Digital Divide is much debated, it has many complex facets to explore: gaps between rich and poor, young and old, language barriers, infrastructure discrepancies, policies, politics and so on. What really came through for me and many others at both the Digital Business China and Digital Business India events, was a positive and encouraging view of the future for these nations, for working together and for UK companies to develop lasting business relationships. Although evidently very different, China and India do have much in common – they are huge countries with an enormous wealth of culture and heritage and they are about to make a huge impact on Western ways and ideals. Philip Dodd, now the head of Made in China UK, gave the delegates much pause for thought when he said that we should not be thinking solely in terms of how we can take our businesses East, but of how the East will be coming to the West and influencing us as never before.

I was at the Digital Business events because Kinura were commissioned to produce a couple of films highlighting the key messages from the two days. (Films still in production and online soon – watch this space). I had a good vantage point as I was interviewing the speakers, and trying to get them to sum up the opportunities and challenges for UK businesses looking to expand into India and China. Apart from the most obvious point, (that of massive growth and massively increasing markets for personal computers, broadband, 3G and all associated content and services), what really came through to me was that we Brits still have some way to go in terms of getting past the stereotypes left over as a final legacy of our crumbled Empire; and also that we need to spend time understanding, researching, connecting and collaborating with these countries if we are serious about taking our businesses there – or indeed working with Indian or Chinese firms from the comfort of our own fair isle. Relationships and expansion plans would need to be carefully considered. We need to think in terms of long-term commitment, a business opportunities that hold the possibility of being complex, adventurous, enlightening, and fundamentally a chance to learn, exchange and work together.

At least we now know that technology can have a major impact on the gap between ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ countries, allowing individuals and societies to move forward and compete on a level playing field with those who previously sought to dominate and subjugate them. There is immense hope to be found in giving the lowest paid and least educated people on our planet access to communications and content via mobile phones and cheap laptops, and in giving people an opening to reach out, tell stories, and form online communities beyond the stifling grip of government censorship. I am not necessarily a technological determinist, I certainly don’t think that networks and broadband will solve the world’s problems, but I do think that the opportunities for digital media are vast and exciting, particularly in a world that is increasingly socially aware. How could e-commerce help rural farmers to make fairer income and profits? Can telemedicine increase crucial resources in underfunded medical centres? Can internet kiosks lift kids out from an almost unimagineable subsistence-based life of in the slums? So much food for thought.

If you want to see the films we made at the Digital Business events, they’ll be posted online soon.