The following paragraph is extracted from an email message written by a German medical doctor working in Papua New Guinea (PNG) since 1999. I was impressed the most by a 15-year-old boy who arrived out of the bush in a health center complaining about lower-right abdominal pain. Due to the possibility of an appendix infection, he had to be transferred to the hospital. But the sea was rough, and he had to wait for two days at the health center. Then a so-called banana boat, a boat with an outboard motor, brought him in a 6-hour trip to Vunapope [a town in PNG]. Even for healthy people such a trip with all the up and down is not a pleasure. As it turned out, the appendix had broken through and quite some pus had collected in his abdomen. In spite of the pain medication, the trip on the boat must have been hell for the boy, but he endured it courageously. The doctor regularly reports about her life and adventures in PNG to her friends and sponsors viaemail. The stories in her e-mail messages are often fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking. Life m PNG is far beyond what some of us can imagine. This article reports on information technology (IT) in PNG, particularly as it affects education and cultural development. The findings are based on data collected from the medical doctor and a school principal, both currently working in PNG. The purpose of the article is not to present sophisticated research results but to offer a glimpse of IT culture in PNG. It starts with a brief overview of IT in developing countries and then focuses on PNG.

• Amy S. C. Leh(Professor in the Instructional Technology program at California State University San Bernardino in the USA)
• Fr. Richard Kennedy(MSC, was rector of Chane] College Seminary, Kokopo, East New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea from 1999-2003.)