Making the World Wide Web More Usable to a Wider World

07 November 2010

Chinese youths use computers at an Internet cafe in Beijing

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

The world has almost seven billion people. At least two billion are expected to be on the Internet by January. New growth is mostly from developing countries. Yet only twenty-one percent of their population is online.

A group called the World Wide Web Foundation is working to make the Web more usable to more of the world.

Tim Berners-Lee is the British computer scientist who invented the World Wide Web. He announced the launch of the Web Foundation last November.

The group says many people can access the Web but are unable to use it. The biggest reason is illiteracy.

The latest United Nations report says almost eight hundred million adults are unable to read or write. Even for those who can read, much of the information that is available on the Web is not in a language they can understand.

Steve Bratt is chief executive of the Web Foundation.

STEVE BRATT: "If you're a poor shopkeeper living in a very impoverished part of Botswana and you're trying to feed your family, trying to buy and sell goods, trying to get medical services for your kids or your employees, and you speak a local language, there's nothing on today's Web that's going to help you, right?