Why a free and fair internet is more vital than ever | Priscilla Chomba-Kinywa

TED Talks Daily

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Without the internet, how would you have coped with the pandemic -- from work and school, to maintaining your closest relationships? In the digital age, reliance on the internet is so common and seems ubiquitous, yet billions of people worldwide still go without it. Digital transformation strategist Priscilla Chomba-Kinywa advocates for collective access to the opportunities and potential the internet provides, underscoring the necessity of free and fair digital rights for all.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hu. The pandemic upended all of our lives, but in an unequal way. Caregivers, frontline workers, and those without digital access got hit harder than most. In her 2021 talk from TEDx Lusaka Studio, digital strategist Priscilla Chamba Kniewa explains the high stakes of disconnection, especially during a pandemic, and how democratizing access to the internet can save lives.
0:33.6	I have a question for you.
0:36.8	How would you have coped with the COVID-19 pandemic if you'd had no
0:40.4	access to the internet? March 2020. I know we all want to forget, but allow me to take you back to
0:49.5	March 2020. You see, it felt like one minute we were doing what we always do going about our daily
0:55.8	business. And then we were keeping sort of one eye on a virus that was over there. And then the next
1:03.6	day, boom, we were in a head-on collision with a pandemic that nobody knew what to do about.
1:09.9	Authorities jumped to action. Don't go to church.
1:13.2	Don't go to the mosque. Don't see your friends. Don't go to restaurants. Don't go outside.
1:17.8	Don't use public transport. And don't visit your parents. Don't go to school. Don't go to work.
1:23.1	It was a barrage of don'ts from every direction possible.
1:29.5	It was a lot.
1:34.5	But we adapted.
1:36.4	We started to accept, and slowly we shifted more and more of what we did from in-person to online.
1:43.8	We started to rely on the power of the internet to order our groceries online. We started to rely on the power of the internet to order
1:46.5	our groceries online, to order our meals, to speak to our friends, or even to learn how to take
1:53.5	care of that plan finally. We used the internet to pray, we used it to exercise, to meditate,
1:59.9	to speak to our therapists.
2:02.1	Organizations, including the one that I work with, shifted to remote working, and I was able
2:06.7	to continue working. Some schools figured out how to deliver online classes, and my children
2:11.9	only had three weeks of interruption to their learning before they were back in class online.
2:17.1	Granted, they were in these classes
	...

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