Todo el País, Uruguay in transformation : ICT transforming rural Uruguay

Abstract: Purpose: The purpose of our research was to study the role and impact that ‘information and communication technologies’ and the MEC centers might have on the Uruguayan society. We want to examine how MEC and ICT usage could affect daily lives of marginalized people in Uruguay. We want to explore how it might benefit individuals living in small communities by evaluating indicators of positive impact of how ICT usage could strengthen capitals and increase freedom. Furthermore, our aim is to understand how digital literacy and the access to ICT’s can be related to democracy, and try to understand if greater individual empowerment also could enhance democracy. Method: For a period of eight weeks, from March 3rd to 28th of April 2014, we were in Montevideo and vicinity to gather material that we later have analyzed qualitatively. The material is based on observations in the field, interviews with various stakeholders, manuals and national policy documents concerning MEC, as well answers we received from an online survey. Main conclusions:We have found that the MEC centers and ICT, combined with education, could be an important tool to facilitate the inclusion of marginalized groups in the Uruguayan society. Our findings indicate that the MEC centers in Uruguay could contribute to the decentralization of the country and have a positive impact on gender- and generation equality. The result suggests that the centers could have a positive impact on democracy in Uruguay by teaching participants how to use e-governmental services as well as encouraging them to participate in online governmental websites. Furthermore, we found that MEC lets the local communities be in charge of their own development, which indicate that the sustainability of the project is increased as well as the positive development outcome. Through the MEC centers we found that both the freedom and the social capital of the participants were positively affected.