Internet Cafés in Asia and Africa Venues for Education and Learning?

This paper examines the use of Internet cafes in two developing countries; Indonesia and Tanzania. The research is based on surveys of about 500 respondents in the two countries, supported by in-depth interviews. The findings show that Internet cafes are used for competence development today, and that they have the potential to be suitable arenas for human resource development for a wide range of users. For the users, access speed and price are important obstacles to increased use. More research is needed to see how Internet cafes can attract new user-groups to help reduce the digital divide within a developing country.