Archive for the ‘e-participation’ Category

The dates for the Birmingham Open Weekend 2010, part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, have been confirmed as 23 - 25 July 2010.

As part of Cultural Olympiad, Say Hello, Aston Pride, the BBC and Digital Birmingham will be on hand to showcase the Digital Time Capsule where you, the people of Birmingham, will be able to record and upload your memorable moment in the form of a video, an image and/or audio file etc.

Come and join the team in Victoria Square on Friday 23 July 2010 from 10am - 4pm and be a part of Birmimgham’s digital journey!

The Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery are monthly events held to help community and voluntary groups use the social web to benefit their organisations.

Digital Birmingham are pleased to announce that the next events are due to take place on:

7 July - at the Balsall Health Forum, The Tree Nursery, 82-89 St. Pauls Road, Balsall Heath, Birmingham. B12 8LS  between 6.00pm and 7.30pm.

15 July -  at the Studio, 7 Cannon Street, off New Street, Birmingham. B2 5EP between 5.30pm and 7.00pm.

To sign up for either of these events, please click here.

Birmingham City University are hosting a one day digital participation seminar on 19th July.

It intends to provide a forum for discussion of the meaning and measurability of Digital Participation, focusing on the three main measurables promoted by the Digital Participation Consortium – Reach, Breadth, Depth.

It will include contributions from Ofcom, following publication of their initial statistics bulletin on digital participation. In addition it will hear about the role of the UK Research Council funded Digital Economy Hub at Newcastle University and from the Arts Council and Audiences Central on the experience they have in measuring participation in the arts. More - Measuring the Unmeasurable: Digital Participation Seminar

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.