Iran is a big country of 1,648,195 square kilometres, spanning a number of different climate zones, making possible cultivation of almost all sorts of fruit and vegetables, as there are different seasons happening simultaneously nationwide.
 
In terms of media and new media, richness and diversity is not so widespread. The country has 74 million inhabitants, of which almost 12 million live in the capital Tehran, where all big newspapers, news agencies and TV and radio stations are located. In the capital, the Internet now becomes a part of life for young girls and boys. After all, Iran is ‘young’, 36 percent of the population are under 15 years old, and 62 per cent of all inhabitants live in cities.

There is compulsory school attendance for children aged 7 to 11, but it cannot be enforced in every corner of the country. In remote areas, far away from cities, forms of communication are traditional and access to education is often limited; many people do not really know about the Internet or how they could personally benefit from it. There are sophisticated e-Learning systems in Iran designed for elementary and high schools, but in the countryside, they are only being used in very few places.

Problems with Internet penetration and availability of quality digital new media content can be also seen from statistics: For 1,000 Iranians, there are 264 radios, 162 TVs, 251 telephone mainlines, 94 computers, 67 mobile phones and 35 Internet accesses. High-speed Internet connections are very rare.

Sepehr Dehpour is a young Rich Media Designer from Teheran, who is concerned about the Internet and e-Content economy in his country. This is why he joined the WSA team of national experts. He organised the first “E-Solutions Festival” of Iran in order to select the best projects of e-Content production in his native country.

He says: “When it comes to working with the Internet, let’s say creating websites, people in Iran don’t really take care of technical issues. They only use the simplest tools instead. For instance, they know Flash, and so they use Flash for everything, although it is clearly not a production environment. You cannot create an attractive website by just using Flash, but this is what most designers in Iran generally do.”

There are several online businesses in Iran, and the number of software companies is growing too, but a huge problem is hampering this development: There are no copyright laws which could be enforced to protect creative ideas and projects.

Mr Dehpour enjoys meeting other WSA experts and finding out what the new media content industry situation is like in their country, in order to better understand what can be done in Iran to change the current situation. WSA experts come from 168 countries and live and work on every continent on earth, thus providing a unique source of varied information on quality e-content and innovative applications.