INFORMATION SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY "There is
perhaps no area of modern technology that combines so many
potential difficulties and problems of transfer and
implementation with such high promise," began Dr. Philip F.
Palmedo, chairman of the International Resources Group, in
introducing information and communications technologies and
their applications in the fields of agriculture, health care,
and education. "Information technology" is defined broadly to
include conventional communications systems (telephones as well
as satellite and fiber optic communications), radio and
television, microprocessors, computers, and all the software,
applications, and combinations of these technologies, including,
for example, robotics and computer/video systems. According to
Palmedo, information technology is perhaps most valuable when
used to provide people in developing countries with the
information they need to make a correct decision - be they
farmers trying to determine when they should plant their crop,