We live in a dangerously divided world where many people have never even made a phone call. Does the international community even have a chance to meet ambitious poverty alleviation targets if the poor are not able to communicate and have access to information?

This week we see yet again that when an enabling environment is created, all kinds of people come up with ideas on how to get on in life without waiting for aid agencies and slow-moving governments. This programme coincides with the World Summit on the Information Society taking place in Geneva.

Bridging the Wall

In China, the Great Wall was built to keep out the Mongol invaders. A symbolic barrier to communications, it's also partly responsible for leaving towns like Makwa to its north with fewer resources than their booming counterparts like Ulay in the south. Cut off for centuries, information and communications technology, ICT, could dramatically change life for these rural communities in this northern region. Although China is internationally competitive in its burgeoning IT industry, its huge rural population has little access to telephone lines, never mind the internet.

Now Makwa is one of 20 villagers where telecentres have been introduced by the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, and the Chinese government. Mu Fen Lian is training farmers in internet use. They can use it to learn about preventing crop diseases and pests as well as keeping up with the price of pigs in other areas, allowing effective financial forecasting.

He Jinyuan of UNDP explains the benefits of new technology in the region: "To the poverty-stricken area, the mental change is the biggest benefit from this project. Through the internet, the farmers can catch up with the development of the world."

Involving women has been an important part of the telecentres, increasing their confidence and standing in the community. Cheng Xiufeng of UNDP says : "Women's position has been raised both at home and in the village. People began to listen to them. Women got their say."

Tailor-made programmes broadcast on cable TV are an additional educational tool, and include information copied from the internet. Other locals like Tian Qiyu, the village doctor, are also putting the net to good use. He no longer has to refer difficult cases to the big hospitals.

Perhaps the biggest achievement of the project is the change of attitude amongst the villagers. Guo Li of the Guaishang Village Telecentre says: "In the beginning, the villagers said 'why don't they give us money if they want to reduce poverty? What's the use of machines?' I told them, it is the information age now. Information is money."

Internet Oasis

Jordan has one of the fastest-growing economies in the Middle East, driven by the capital city Amman. But without the oil reserves of neighbouring countries, Jordan is one of the poorest countries in the region. Its rural population is unable to share the wealth of Amman. ICT could change that.

In the Arab world only one out of every 500 people has internet access but in 2000, the King Abdullah Fund For Development backed the creation of a network of information technology community centres with computer work stations called knowledge stations - a scheme supported by UNDP. The aim is to offer training, increase job opportunities, and raise awareness right across Jordanian society, town and country alike.

There are now already 75 out of 100 planned knowledge stations across Jordan. One of them is in the small town of Muager that lies in the desert to the east of Amman. Its community centre runs computer literacy classes.

The practicality is evident to one woman who has been able to download the Macaton sign language to help communicate with deaf children. In addition, senior girls and boys from the local schools are taught basic computer skills. When they go back to their schools they can run classes for the younger children, helping spread these skills to the community.

The town of Arak-Al-Ameer is on the opposite side of Amman, in the mountain area to the west of the country. The centre here has a computer section currently running a women's typing course. Many have since got jobs. But it's also a community centre with rooms where local women make handicrafts that'll be marketed on an e-commerce site.

When it's up and running, any knowledge station across Jordan will be able to sell their local handicrafts over the internet. There's a market in both Amman and abroad for the quality produce made in these small towns.

During filming a group of Nepalese arrived, keen to see if the knowledge centres model can be applied to their country. So far more than 35,000 people have been trained, generating benefits throughout the country.

Caribbean Connections

The mountains of the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. Communities here are beyond the reach of the national grid and telephone system. But over the past six years, Al Limon, an isolated farming community, has become the test bed for a low-cost, high tech communication system linking it to the rest of the world, supported by the UN's small grants programme.

Here there are many problems - health care, education, and slash and burn agriculture are just a few - but now the government is working to close the digital divide. In just one year more than 500 communities have received public telephones with satellite technology. There's also an experiment under way to find a cheaper alternative.

Six years ago, John Katz began to work with the villagers to bring hydro-electricity to the community. Now that the village has been electrified, John is working to create low-cost alternative telecommunications. Using inexpensive radio technology, he's connected Al Limon to Achoa, the provincial capital over the mountain ten kilometres away.

John's system works on new radio technology called wi-fi. He explains how it works: "Wi-fi has its origins as a tool for offices. Basically it was a way of distributing information on and off the intranet by radio to several laptops or other portable computers, but just more or less by chance, at the same time many of the same people were developing a technology that they were calling 'building to building' bridges. The same technology was developing for longer distances."

John has adapted this 'building to building' system to connect rural villages like Al Limon. His aim is to use the computers and the internet to improve education in the village. Interactive educational games are a fun way to learn maths and spelling. Children actually want to improve their written language skills so they'll sound more intelligent in on-line chats.

But even using an inexpensive system, connectivity comes at a price. John's devised a scheme whereby the children are put in charge of selling phone calls over the internet, generating money to ensure the project continues to be a success in the schools.

Winding Hope

Less than a decade ago Nymata, Rwanda saw some of the worst casualties of the genocide. Ten percent of the adult population was wiped out, leaving Rwanda with the highest number of child-headed households in Africa.

Children were once cared for by the entire community but many are now on their own. The problems are compounded by the increase of AIDs, leading to even more orphans.

Annette Mogwenesa of Refugee Trust International, and Kristine Pearson of the Freeplay Foundation, have worked together since 1999. They're distributing self-powered radios to child-headed households.

With more telephone lines in New York than in the whole of Africa, access to telecommunications is limited. Radio is just about the only source of information, but batteries are expensive. Children have little hope of owning a radio.

The radios distributed by Refugee Trust and Freeplay have a unique design that marks them out as children's property. Before any radio is given out, the children make a solemn agreement to use it for only themselves or other young people living near them.

Even though they are simple to use, there are two ways to get the radios to work. The attached handle can be wound up or the solar panel can be left in the sun to re-charge. Kristine remarks on their practicality: "I think you can look at an average cost of around $40 per radio, and that radio then reaches up to 40 children, even over just one year it's extremely cost-effective."

Thirteen-year-old Eriminatha Nyirabagenzi returns home to share the radio with two of the six children she's been looking after since her mother died a few months ago. Eriminatha spends her days cultivating her tiny plot or working for others so she can pay for books and materials for the children she's sending to school. She believes the radio will help beat the daily loneliness.

Critics of the radio are concerned about its content, but the children regularly listen to an environmental magazine programme and Uranana, the country's most popular soap. And for Eriminatha, listening to news is surprisingly always top of the list.

Eighteen-year-old Samuel Uwayezu has been looking after his brothers and sisters since he was ten. He's had a wind-up radio for three years, and because he couldn't go to school, he now regularly listens to educational programmes. He even invites others to listen.

Despite the temptation to sell the radio, very few have gone missing. The only problem is the wind-up mechanism, which is why the new design is so much better. Would Samuel be without his radio? He says: "No, I like my radio because of the important information I get from it."

Out of India

At independence from the British Raj, India's first prime minister, Pandat Nehru, had a vision to catch up with the industrial world. Factories and dams would be the temples of progress. It never really happened.

India followed the Soviet model of central planning, but Nehru did leave a great legacy; higher education and English with a focus on engineering. Unknowingly, Nehru laid the groundwork for India's progress as a software giant with exports and servicing now earning US$6 billion a year.

Infosys, the only Indian company on NASDAQ, is one of the leaders. It started in 1981 in Narayana Murthy's front room in Mumbai. The success of Infosys has created nearly 2,000 Rupee millionaires in the country.

Wipro, no less a success story, began as a vegetable oil concern. Its owner, Azim Premji, spotted a new market and software is now 90% of the turnover. Premji is reportedly India's richest man, worth $10 billion.

India's Silicon Valley is in Bangalore, or Bar Galore as some call it. It's a magnet for young software engineers. Shining company campuses jostle with poverty, overcrowding and poor services. Premji and Murthy have a lot in common. Both are billionaires and both have similar explanations for the runaway success of their companies. They say a focus on quality, integrity and honest dealing are good business practice.

In such pockets of enterprise, the software professionals are insulated from the rest of India. Working on a 24-hour clock they have the ideal geography. As most of their business is with the USA, they keep the programmes going while America goes to bed.

They've adopted the campus approach of their American counterparts - superb canteens and recreational facilities, swimming pool, basketball, even a golf course. And unlike some countries, it is not a male-dominated field and many women are going into the IT stream.

But very little of the business is in India itself. Out of a population of over a billion, just 10 million are connected to the internet. Hewlett-Packard Labs is looking at ICT more widely. There are 200 million telephone users. HP Labs is working on voice ticketing for trains. Half a million tickets are issued every day, and it's not unknown to queue for 24 hours for a ticket. The voice order system is being tried out using Hindi, a dominant Indian language.

So what is Premji and Murthy's advice to other developing countries keen to join the ICT boom? "In the majority of the developing world, one of the biggest challenges government are facing is low enrolment in schools, particularly girl child" says Azim Premji.

Narayan Murthy adds: "And I think at the end of the day, free trade has to be fair trade, and unless it is fair trade, it's not going to last too long."