Merits of open-source resolution to resolve a digital divide in information technology

The Internet becomes a fundamental infrastructure of the current life. The fundamental technology must be accessible to anyone; otherwise, there arises a digital-divide between the people who can use these technologies and the people who cannot. We must resolve this problem by some means or many people are isolated from the society. To resolve a part of this problem, the author launched Bilingual Emacspeak Project. This open-source project develops a highly capable bilingual speech synthesis system for Japanese visually impaired computer users. In this paper, based on the experiences of Bilingual Emacspeak Project and other projects that concern well-being activities, the prospect, problems, and important points of resolving a digital-divide by open-source project assisted by the Internet is discussed in detail.