Archive for the ‘e-participation’ Category

The Open Data Institute opened last year with a mission to “catalyse an open data culture that has economic, environmental and social benefits”.

As part of its work it has recently launched its Innovation Programme. The programme will help SMEs and start-ups to work with data providers, industry experts and business leaders to develop new ways to better understand how to reuse available data sets in ways which create business opportunities.

The series of events will focus on challenges formulated by industry experts and the first of these aims to tackle three challenges in the area of Crime and Justice. These challenges ask how open data projects can be constructed that achieve one of the following:

- increase community involvement with the criminal justice system

- create further evidence for what are effective interventions for rehabilitation

- address the rise in personal crime

and at the competition weekend, planned for the end of June, the ODI will make awards of up to £8k for pre-seed investment with a single final prize of up to £25k. Additionally the successful teams will be included in the ODI Start Up Programme.

SMEs and start-ups interested in taking part in the programme should sign up here:

For further information about the programme please feel free to contact Simon Whitehouse, the series lead for the Crime and Justice challenges at si@siwhitehouse.co.uk

We think there is quite a lot of untapped expertise around social media from people who work in the public sector but who don’t actually get to use social media in their job.

So, we want to learn from public sector staff who regularly use social networking sites, in their spare time, such as Twitter and Facebook to inform a number of projects which will shape how public sector organisations use social media.

Initially this will focus on the NHS and the council, following an approach from Darren Wright at the Health and Wellbeing Partnership.

We want to understand how we can better engage with local residents and
get messages into communities using new technologies, and are looking for experts to help us create this approach.

You do not have to use Social Media as part of your work but we would like to look at your personal experience and find out what you can teach us about becoming more digitally engaged organisations. For more information email us here

Following on from the Martha Lane Fox visit to Birmingham last week, I have attached the discussion notes from the parallel workshop that took place and findings shared with Martha Lane Fox. Any thoughts, please let us know and we can feed these in.

I have also included a short video clip where Martha Lane Fox talks about her role as Champion for Digital Inclusion.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.

As part of the Martha Lane Fox visit to Birmingham, we ran a workshop to engage people working in digital inclusion with those in economic development and regeneration; staff promoting jobs and skills with those advising businesses and helping communities. The aim of the workshop was to examine the importance of the digital inclusion of citizens and businesses (i.e. their access, confidence and competence in using digital technologies) to enable economic recovery.

Catherine Marshall, Member of the Digital Inclusion Task Force who attended the workshop has kindly provided us with her reflections on the workshop:

As a member of Martha Lane Fox’s Digital Inclusion Task Force, I was delighted to be invited to attend the event hosted by Digital Birmingham Yesterday
Supported by an impressive turn out of delegates from Birmingham City Council and the surrounding Boroughs the event gave an invaluable opportunity to discuss some of the barriers that prevent those who are most socially excluded accessing digital technology, and explore what intervention or strategies need to be applied to overcome these difficulties.

As always, there is no one size fits all, and as Digital Inclusion is inextricably linked to Social Inclusion, understanding the complexities of the task at hand is as intricate as the solutions need to be.

All recognised the solutions needs to be applied at grass route level; and being provided with snap shots of on the ground work that is taking place, is always a constant confirmation of this, proving how being digitally connected dramatically improves peoples life chances and opportunities.

The event was incredibly positive, acknowledging that getting people on line is a matter of urgency, and the need to make an impact, by promoting social responsibility and the common goal, with the need to encourage pledges from all areas including the private sectors, to get on board and work together to close the digital divide.

As Martha concluded, “working together, there is an opportunity to achieve something really special”

It is clear that Digital Birmingham has the determination to make a real difference and achieve the ‘really special’ results it is looking for.
Catherine Marshall
Member of the Digital Inclusion Task Force

We’re pleased to be welcoming Martha Lane Fox, Champion for Digital Inclusion and some of her Digital Inclusion Task Force to Birmingham today. We have a full morning planned with visits to meet families who have benefited from the award-winning Aston Pride Computers in the Home project; and residents of an Erdington tower block (Windsor House) who have been provided with computers and broadband connectivity in a six month trial to promote broadband uptake in social housing.

In addition to meeting the city’s residents, Martha Lane Fox will also be holding talks with community representatives, regional policy makers and business heads to discuss key priorities for the Race Online 2012 strategy and the city’s drive to address digital inclusion in achieving economic recovery. She will be meeting with Deputy Leader, Cllr Paul Tilsley where Martha’s ‘Ask’ to Birmingham will be to look at ways in which we could act more as a corporate citizen by engaging our workforce in helping to reduce the digital divide.

The full day’s programme is here for more information and we’ll let you know more about the day as it unfolds.

From 2nd to 4th February 2010, the best Digital specialists from around Europe converged upon the RAI centre in Amsterdam for the Integrated Systems Europe 2010 event. Now in its 6th year, the ISE Show allows companies to showcase their hardware to audiences that over the three day event now is in excess of 25,000 attendees. The businesses vary from audio to visual hardware and in a visual format, from small format to large format screen.

The attendees also come from a wide spectrum of businesses, with the wish to see the best cutting-edge digital technology available and how the technology is used in a multitude of environments. Pebu represented Digital Birmingham at the event to look at the opportunities for project partners linked to innovations in digital signage particularly in connection to the digital events that we are delivering in autumn 2010.

Pebu have delivered cutting-edge technology before this event, at Hello Digital 2009 having a number of touch-screen technology pieces, including the Panasonic 103″ touch-screen, which at the time of the event was the World’s largest touch-screen.

The following Case Study highlights the key areas of the show and allows the partners of Pebu an insight into how these technologies will enhance the propositions that Pebu will look to deliver.

I’ve just read an interesting article from the BBC site which makes reference to London’s attempt to free up some of the public sector data in order to see how people might use it.  Birmingham is doing a similar project called Timely Information – but I hadn’t realised until now that 4ip Channel 4′s innovation fund are offering a £200,000 reward for the best of the ideas that come out of the mashup.  If I were a hacker, that would give me another good reason to work into the small hours.  And when you’re analysing the released datasets, why not check out the Council’s ‘Be Heard’ database.  This is an online portal for all of the City’s consultation.  Eg. what people want.  Hackers, you have the data, and you also have a font of information from the public, on what services they need or would like to see developed. Check out the piece from the BCC here

In my post Christmas, rather over indulged state, I’ve just had a quick look around for some help with how to get back into shape.

It didn’t take me long to find a favourite….   Came across this site from handbag.co.uk that shows you little video clips of different exercises, relevant to different body parts.  Exercises relevant to a pretty comprehensive list such as; banish back fat, get a booty-licious bum, minimise your miffin tops, eliminate jelly belly to list just a few – I guess there’s something there for any ailment.

I’ve been working on the banish bingo wings for the past 10 mins – whilst eating the last of the mince pies in the office.  I’m hoping to pull off a break even calorie count.

A site I will be logging onto quite often over the next month.  Why not check it out here then let me know your favourite and if you’ve seen any improvement.

Birmingham City Council have just unveiled a new and exciting database which pulls together all research & consultation projects they (and all Be Birmingham partners) undertake throughout the year, and gives Birmingham people a greater chance to get their voices heard.  The Be Heard database is an easy to use system which allows the user to search for key words or topics of interest.  There is a simple video which walks you through how to use the system, and a consultation calendar which shows when key pieces of research are planned.  The best bit though, is the database allows you receive email alerts when topics that interest you are due to happen.