Europe lets kids down, says guru

Internet usage woefully behind that of US

Europe is an Internet 'Third World' and is failing its children, said technology guru Nicholas Negroponte in his keynote speech at a European Union-sponsored IT conference in Brussels last week, writes Nigel Tutt.

Negroponte attacked the negative approach to the Internet he claims to see in many European countries

'I am full of admiration for the situation in the Scandinavian countries,' he said.

'Finland has the highest use of PCs per capita in the world, and Sweden has the highest teledensity.

'But it is almost as though someone has drawn a line under those countries, because you look at France and Germany, and to a lesser degree the UK, and it is like the Third World.'

Comparing the low figures for Internet use in European schools to the high percentage of schools in the US that are online, Negroponte accused Europe of letting its children down.

But he praised the 'spirit' of the southern European countries, which he predicted would be 'digitally literate' in the near future. He blamed cultural reasons for stifling children's development in middle Europe.

'I look at the model of Europe with an element of sadness, and when I hear that Deutsche Telekom has raised the cost of its local calls I think that is a sin. It is the children that get screwed,' he said.

Quoting anecdotal evidence based on his own experience, Negroponte spelled out a future filled with people who had 'lived online'. This generation would be free from prejudice and better suited to solving the world's problems, the guru said.

Negroponte heads the Media Laboratories at MIT.

? Report by VNU Newswire