Birmingham at #ndi09
8th May 2009
John’s already given his report on the National Digital Inclusion Conference 2009, so I thought I’d reflect on the work put in by the two Birmingham groups who were there. Representing the voluntary sector, we had We Share Stuff who were “there to share” and to demonstrate to people at the conference the benefits of social networking tools. Representing the public sector, we had Digital Birmingham and its partners, who are founder members of the DC10+ Network, the co-sponsors of the event.
There was a session centred around the work being done by grassroots organisations to tackle social exclusion using digital technologies. For this, Digital Birmingham got Priara and Shazia from Saathi House down to talk about their “A Conversation About Diabetes” project which teaches English skills using digital technology in order to improve access to health . Priara is a very impressive speaker and for many of us was a highlight of the conference as she was able to talk about a practical example of digital inclusion from personal experience.
Also talking about his experience on the Aston Pride project was Michael Lewis from Link2ICT. He project managed the successful Computers for Pupils project, winner of an e-Government Award in the Building a Fairer Society category this year. Michael has also been Community ICT Champion in Aston for the past 3-4 years and he had many useful observations and anecdotes to enlighten his audience.
Mike Lewis being interviewed by People's Voice Media
We Share Stuff had a very prominent position on the exhibition area and a steady stream of people coming to them for advice on how they could use Social Media in their organisations. Ben Whitehouse and Nicky Getgood of Digbeth is Good also went out on to the streets of Westminster to ask the general public what their understanding of what Digital Inclusion is. They made up probably 50% of the Tweets that were made at conference, which Helen Milner (Director of UK Online Centres) was, very sensibly, using as a record of what happened and what people were thinking during the two days.
And of course there was the We Share Stuff inaugural fringe event, considered so essential that we had people come down from Birmingham especially for it. It was a chance for an informal meet up after the day’s events, to discuss what we’d seen and to talk ever such a small amount of rubbish to each other.
I came away thinking that there were a number of questions that many of us are asking, sometimes in different ways and often from different perspectives. What is digital inclusion*? How do we get the work that we do on mainstream agendas (and does calling it digital inclusion make that more difficult)? What are the connections between policy makers, budget holders and the people doing the work? Does the rapid pace of change of enhancing digital technologies help to close social inequalities any more than it creates new ones?
*I used the phrase earlier on, but I think that we are tackling social exclusion using digital technologies. Which leads to the question of what do we mean by social exclusion. . . . . . .?
