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The digital revolution, like every other revolution, has produced winners and losers. As of 2015, nearly 60 per cent of the world’s population–4 billion people–lack access to the internet, while 2 billion lack access to basic mobile phones (World Bank, 2016). These digitally excluded 4 billion are unable to access income-generating opportunities, goods and services based on information and communications technologies (ICT), and cannot fully engage and participate in the digital economies, societies or polities that shape their lives. As Manuel Castells predicted (in 1996), the digital revolution divides the world into two populations: the interacting and the interacted.

The opportunities and challenges of digital technology have not gone unrecognized in development policy and practice. The most salient illustration is Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9 on infrastructure and innovation, which calls for enhanced ICT access and affordable internet access worldwide by 2020.1 This target, and the decades of work leading to it, are laudable and important. It has the potential to make a difference to millions of lives, especially in the rapidly changing context of digital technology. But this won’t happen unless some of the important lessons that have been learned about the reality of existing digital inequalities are taken into account.