Meaningful Broadband is an ethical model for closing the digital divide, authored by Professor Craig Warren Smith. Its was adopted by two nations -Thailandia and Indonesia, and it was later introduced into China. In 2023, the model was enhance to be renamed Meaningful Artificial Intelligence (MAI), aimed at bringing AI ecosystems to low-income tiers of the Global South. Both Meaningful Broadband and MAI are projects of Digital Divide[1]Institute.
After being introduced to Asian[2] nations, the meaningful technology approach is how being adapted to include AI-enable best practice for low-income[3] populations across the Global South.
The approach to meaning technology governace has two aspects:
Infrastructure reforms needed for low-income populations that make beneficial use of last internet.
A suite of AI innovations that help nonurban populations benefit from AI-enabled education, finance and employmentt reforms.
Both projects are initiatives of
Digital Divine Institute, a US-based nonprofit organization co-chaired Ilham A Habibie, a civic leader and govermment official in Indonesia and Professor Smith.
In 2006, the first nation to formally adopt Meaningful Broadband as
national policy was Thailand.[4] The Thai telecommunications regulatory agency, National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC),[17] formulated plans to establish a meaningful broadband ecosystem in a remote
province of Thailand called
Maha Sarakham and to activate a "meaningful technology index" that would be an
ethics based regulatory strategy that would award spectrum to projects that score high on the index.[18] In Thailand, The Center for Science, Technology, and Society continues to incorporate programming in Meaningful Broadband in its sector in applied ethics at
Chulalongkorn University.[18][19]
In the following year, Republic of Indonesia began a 15-year embrace of Meaningful Broadband, led by
Ilham A Habibie, son of a former President of Indonesia and current director of the government’s National ICT Council.[20][21] Since 2012, Meaningful Broadband has been tested among various local regencies in Indonesia, supported by a technical team from
World Bank Indonesia.[22]
^"Old Friends". Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
^a ::says, Meaningful Broadband for Indonesia » :: B. r y P. o e n y (2009-06-15).
"What is the Meaningful Broadband Working Group?". Center for Science, Technology, and Society. Retrieved 2024-06-10.
^
ab"Meaningful Broadband Research". Center for Science, Technology, and Society Chulalongkorn University. Chulalongkorn University.
Archived from the original on 9 November 2021. Retrieved 24 March 2021.