Archive for the ‘Digital City’ Category

I came across this event on the Birmingham.gov site yesterday where free bootcamps to help grow your business on the web  were being promoted.

The bootcamps are aimed at:

1) small businesses, freelancers, managers or those in marketing

2) entrepreneurs who has a website

3) anyone who is thinking about launching a website

and will teach you how to:

1) Get ranked on search engines

2) Leverage social media effectively

3) Start selling in key web marketplaces

4) Get the right ecommerce site affordably

These bootcamps have been put on courtesy of the Department of Business Innovation and Skills,  School for Startups, Yell (and others) to help small businesses in the UK and will be held nationally – the Birmingham event will be held on Thursday 19 January 2012.

Please click here for more information and to register.

Click here to access DB’s third Quarterly Report for the months of  October to December 2011.

Again it’s been a busy three months with the submission of funding bids and we are pleased to confirm that we have secured and will be leading on the EU DISCOVER project which is about developing/enhancing the digital skills of formal and informal carers. Visit our project page for more info. http://www.digitalbirmingham.co.uk/projects/digital-skills-for-carers

Great news for Birmingham!

Yesterday, Ofcom proposed 20 sites for consultation for the local television multiplex licence. They were selected to achieve a range of locations across the UK, and a range of scales of operation. Evidence of strong local demand was also taken into account.

The 20 sites are: Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Grimsby, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Preston, Southampton and Swansea.

More..

Digital Birmingham will be hosting Digital Unite‘s second National Social Housing Forum in Birmingham this Thursday 1 December 2011 from 10.30 – 15.30 at Maple House.

The aim of the forum is to look at ways to support digital inclusion activities for residents and tenants. There will be hardware, software and connectivity suppliers there (BT, Avonline and Networked Neighbourhoods are amongst a few) plus social housing providers to explore how services can be better tailored to benefit your organisation.

Places are complimentary but limited, so if you’d like to attend, please email kathy.valdes@digitalunite.com

If you are off to the IP EXPO  at Earls Court 2 in London today, why not check out  Touch2view‘s ‘Giant iTab’, their giant interactive tablet!

For more info, please visit www.giantitab.com

If you know somebody who could benefit from being online, why not give an hour of your time and show them how - It could make a massive difference to their life!

To pledge your hour, and for more information, please click here.

Go-On – Give an hour!

Passionate Media have teamed up with training providers SSC Learning and are working with them to pioneer a new Social Media Marketing Apprenticeship Scheme across Staffordshire and the Midlands.

Presentations will be held tomorrow about the scheme, where companies can take on a social media marketing apprentices in their business. If you’re a businesses that wants to invest in social media or are a young person who wants to pursue a career in marketing and communications, pop along to The Birmingham Small Business Centre at either 8.30am, 10.30am or 12.30pm.

Based on US statistics from the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA) – their latest ‘broadband infographic’ details the connection between Broadband utilisation and the impact on the local economy, and in particular the beneficial effect this can have on job retention, creation and employment opportunities.

So, reiterating what Digital Birmingham has been saying for years:

The Ten Facts

The IIA appears to be America’s counterpart to Digital Birmingham, as it seeks to promote US public policies that support equal opportunity for universal broadband availability and adoption so that everyone, everywhere can seize the benefits of the Internet – from education to health care, employment to community building, civic engagement and beyond.

So, lets get all the US stats out of the way and I’d be really interested in finding out whether the UK has an equivalent body other than the Office of National Statistics (ONS) or West Midlands Regional Observatory, but in the meantime the Strategic Networks Group (SNG) has created a Digital Economy Index (DEi), which not surprisingly, the research shows that age and income have very significant impacts on how people use the Internet.  The proprietary Digital Economy Index summarises how households use thirty distinct Internet activities.  The higher the DEi, the more Internet activities a household engages in.  The Digital Economy index progression from 1 to 10 (10 being highest) reflects the number of e-solutions being utilised – 10 being a household at 100% utlisation.

Utilisation is impacted by income and age – the lower a household income or the older the household, the lower its Internet utilisation.  The differences (or divide) is most pronounced for those over 55 and those making less than $50,000.

So the digital divide is actually expanding as younger, higher income households best leverage e-solutions.

Again we’ve been busy with the preparation of funding bids  and supporting the support the three city Council priorities; Employment, Education & Skills,  Clean Green & Safe City and Protecting Vulnerable People with a strong focus on raising the profile of Birmingham.

Please click here to read the second quarterly update of what’s happening in the world of Digi Brum!