Welcome to our connected issue. This month, we focus on the digital divide and how it can be bridged with policies, programmes or projects. Half the world is concerned about the problems that digital connectivity brings yet the other half suffers from a lack of digital connectivity. The internet these days is not just about economic development – it empowers and connects people too.

There are many digital divides across the world: by age, gender, geography, wealth and more. What would it take to get the other half of the world connected? Can we connect everyone? Keri Allan investigates the worldwide digital divide. But this divide is not just a problem for the developing world. It's a problem in the developed world too. E&T's publisher, the IET, is a co-founder of the the UK Digital Poverty Alliance, which has just launched its Evidence Review report to help formulate the National Delivery Plan to tackle the digital divide in the UK. "Digital...