Rotary International officially recognized the existence of the Digital Divide and has recognized the International Fellowship of Digital Technology Rotarians. Rotary International, which is the international organization that mobilized the efforts and resources to eradicate Polio in 99% of the world, now has a venue to address bridging the Digital Divide with this new fellowship.

The Digital Divide Fellowship is about Rotarians making the Internet a better place for all 6.5 billion people. The Internet is quite a unique thing. It is not owned or controlled by any government, religion, or commercial entity. There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States that says when you wake up in the morning that the Internet has to be there so that you can check your emails and log on to www.espn.com to check the scores of the NCAA basketball games last night. In a pure sense nobody directly profits from the use of it. Volunteer organizations are responsible for its maintenance and its future.

It is a lot like clean water in many ways, only a lot more complex and complicated. Those that have it would have a very difficult time living without it.

One very concrete example of work that the Digital Divide Fellowship will focus on will be the global introduction of IPv6 (the technical name for the "New Internet" which uses a 128 bit IP address header), which is quickly being adopted by many parts of the world, specifically in many parts of Asia (those parts of the world where Internet access has historically been relatively sparse since the original Internet was developed in part by Vint Cerf, and Larry Roberts in 1973), and yet more slowly recognized by others. Without the global adoption of IPv6 permitting an abundance of IP addresses, the Internet as we know will not perform at the same level of service and security that it does today, and without it the Internet will continue to be a tool for the privileged few that it is now, and not a tool for the masses of humanity to enjoy on an equal basis much like radio broadcasts are today.

From a technical standpoint there really isn't any reason why all 6.5 billion people could not wake up in the morning with affordable, ubiquitous, broadband wireless Internet access in the palm of their hands. The Digital Divide fellowship is driven to make that a reality rather than a dream, and the Fellowship believes that the world in general would be a more peaceful and humane place to live in all corners of the world if that was a reality.