So China's internet restrictions have been crippling to my ability to access this blog! From internet cafes in Beijing, the current capital, Xi'an, the ancient capital silk road market center, and Pingyao, a walled-in small city with hundreds of beautifully lighted hanging red chinese lanterns, none could offer Social Edge access! 20 hours train ride in standing room later, though, and Hong Kong's historically distinct development finally gives respite to the govt. controlled net censorship I've experienced and allows the conversation to continue.

Along the journey, we have bicycled through a corn field to an ancient Shaolin Temple, bargained with haggling street vendors, climbed 5,000 steps along the Great Wall, and witnessed some of the most stunningingly rapid urban development on earth. The development seems somehow stunted, though, by the lack of it in rural areas. This massive disparity is questionably apparent, though, and so in my frustrations with the internet, I wanted to pose a question to any of you readers who may have had your own experiences traveling, especially in China or Asia, about the future of democratization of technology in the far east. For countries that lack popular literacy, but are increasingly coming into contact with travelers and foreigners, and yet are stymied by their own government's cyber restrictions, how can digitally-minded social entrepreneurs make change happen abroad?

Close friends of mine are putting video cameras in the hands of children in India through their Modern Story project(www.themodernstory.wordpress.com), and the committed efforts of Room to Read by John Wood is teaching children to read in many of these countries, often building technologically advanced language labs. What stories and approaches do you know of that may work to bridge the digital divide? Rodrigo Baggio's CDI programs in Brazil is certainly a great model. How can initiatives like his be replicated?