Abstract
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has developed a tool known as the Information and Communication Technology Development Index (IDI) for measuring the development of countries as information societies. They found a close correlation between IDI and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of countries. In this paper on the basis of this relationship we have tried to create a 30 arc-second grid of IDI. At first a disaggregated map of total economic activity was created from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) merged radiance-calibrated nighttime image of 2006 and the LandScan population grid of 2006. The GDP per capita was then calculated and an attempt was made to create the IDI grid. However, at the 30 arc-second resolution the GDP per capita was found to be less in the city centers than in the areas surrounding the city centers. Thus an estimated IDI grid at 30 arc-second resolution could not be created based on the relationship between GDP per capita and official IDI. Therefore, the finest resolution at which the estimated IDI map was created was at the state level for the South-East Asian countries. In a future endeavor, we intend to create an IDI grid of much finer resolution.
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