PEDROSO-AGUIAR, WILLY
Mr. @ University College London
Bio
Willy Pedroso is a Cuban researcher on Communication for Development, Information Inequalities and Infopoverty. He holds a BA in Social Communication (Suma Cum Laude) and an MSc in Library and Information Sciences, both from the University of Havana. He was awarded a Chevening Scholarship to study an MA in Latin American Studies at University College London. For 6 years, He worked as an assistant professor and researcher at the department of Social Communication of the University of Havana, and member of the University Chair of Information and Communication for Development. He has published more than 10 research articles and 5 books, including the series of two books “Information, Communication, and Change of Mentality” (Editorial of Social Sciences). He has been awarded as Best Young Professor and Investigator of the University Of Havana (2017), Honorary Mention at Temas Prize in Social Sciences (2018), and the Annual Prize of the Cuban Academy of Sciences (2019). He has been a guest lecturer at Universitat de Girona (Spain) and University of Cape Town (South Africa) and has led over 3 international research projects.
Geographical location : London, UK
Research Area and Interest : communication for development, information inequalities, digital inequalities
Social Media
Panel
Session 2: Policy
Presentation
Time for the disconnected
The vertiginous development of Information, Communication, and Technologies, has put specific social groups at a disadvantage. International organizations have proven that by January 2022, 15 million people in the Caribbean were disconnected from the Internet; also, in 2019 only 21.28% of the Latin American and Caribbean population had basic digital skills such as sending emails with attachments. As a specific manifestation of inequalities, infopoverty characterizes the situation of groups and communities who do not have economic, cognitive, or relational resources to receive the benefits of informational dynamics in today's society. With this motivation, I intend to share research results and analysis driven by two questions: (a) what have been the characteristics and trends of info-poverty in Cuba, Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago between 2010 and 2020? And (b) what has been the impact of policies to reduce info-poverty in Cuba, Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago between 2010 and 2020? The paper is based on an explanatory Mix Methods Research. It was possible to identify that the three countries have experienced sustained growth in access indicators, which has not meant improvements in citizen participation strategies or in knowledge exchange. The most important idea is if the informational exclusion of the infopoor in the Caribbean deepens, educational and sociocultural disparities will increase, the capacity for innovation of economic actors will decrease, the conditions of marginality and social vulnerability of the communities will increase, and development will only be a project of a few.