A young girl teaches the elderly to shoot a video with a smart phone at an elderly care service center in Yuhu District of Xiangtan City, central China's Hunan Province, May 17, 2022.
BEIJING, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Faced with digital gap among the elders and in the rural areas, Chinese digital technology giant Alibaba Group (Alibaba) has taken multiple measures to bridge the digital gap, reported Economic Information Daily on Wednesday..
At a forum themed “bridging digital gap” held during the annual Digital China Summit, a report on Chinese citizens’digital literacy and skills was revealed, showing that China has made great progress in improving citizens’digital literacy and skills, but the digital gap still remains.
According to the report, as of December 2021, the urban Internet penetration rate stood at 81.3 percent while that of rural areas was 57.6 percent. In addition, the elders are facing various difficulties when using intelligent equipment, such as difficulties in downloading, setting, using, and maintaining the applications.
To accommodate the elderly on the country's digitalization journey, many digital technology firms like Alibaba are doing their parts. It is learn that Alibaba has updated its 15 applications to better serve the elders in the scenarios of shopping, dining, leisure and social networking.
Amap, a navigation service provider taken over by Alibaba in 2014, has provided “tailor-made”products and functions for the group. From October 2021, it has implemented an initiative to make car-hailing easier for the elders by setting up car stands near communities and bus stops. It is reported that over 2,200 such stands have been set up in over 20 cities in the country.
Additionally, Alibaba also put forth an initiative to promote rural revitalization by recruiting volunteers from the company and sending them to less-advantaged areas to provide digital supports and digital training.
(Edited by Li Shimeng with Xinhua Silk Road, lishimeng@xinhua.org)
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