Leapfrogging

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Leapfrogging is a theory of development in which developing countries skip inferior, less efficient, more expensive or more polluting technologies and industries and move directly to more advanced ones.

The main aim is to promote greater access of computer and other technologies, to those people who would normally have no way of accessing it on their own.

A frequent example is countries which move directly from having no telephones to having cellular phones, skipping the stage of landline telephones altogether.

There are a few ways that leapfrogging can occur, some of which are accidentally (such as when the only systems around for adoption are better than legacy systems elsewhere), situationally (such as the adoption of decentralized communication for a sprawling, rural countryside), or intentionally (such as policies promoting the installation of WiFi and free computers in poor urban areas).

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Developing Countries

Developed countries

Legacy Systems

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