Posts Tagged ‘Birmingham’

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

As the person within the team whose responsibility it is to carry out desk based research, I thought it is about time to share with you what I find, and find useful, regarding the digital agenda.

I am not an expert or even a researcher by trade - but I enjoy looking, have quite a lot of luck at finding useful material and my colleagues have cottoned on to this fact (and it is in my job description!).

More - Research - friend or foe?

It’s probably time you had an update on where Digital Birmingham has got to with the Timely Information for Citizens project we announced back in April. As it happens I gave a presentation on the subject to a room full of representatives from other city councils yesterday. There’s a post over at the Improvement and Development Agency website which I was impressed to see had gone up within a couple of hours of me finishing my talk. The video below gives you some idea where we’re at with the project:

More - Timely Information for Citizens - half time score

Simon Whitehouse, Dave Harte and John Heaven, all from Digital Birmingham, joined Nick Booth and Paul Henderson from Podnosh and Raj Rattu from Community Consultancy to deliver Lozells’ first social media surgery on Tuesday evening.

Local residents of varying abilities came along to find out about social media tools from Wordpress.com to Flickr via YouTube. Some blogs were set up on the spot — lozells.wordpress.com, boathousecafe.wordpress.com, and http://jenniferbent.wordpress.com — so we’ll be keeping an eye on those to see whether they become regulars on the Handsworth & Lozells social media scene!

The Lozells social media surgery followed on the success of social media surgeries in the city centre. BeVocal is part of the Open City project, managed by Digital Birmingham’s Dave Harte following a successful bid for funding under the Department of Communities and Local Government’s Timely Information programme. BeVocal aims to promote the use of social media for civic good and to gather ideas for the tools that the Open City project should create from datasets released by public bodies.

We intend to continue with further social media surgeries in Lozells so that people who attended on Tuesday can come back and refresh or depend their skills and new people can come and satisfy their curiosity. Details will be on the Life in Lozells blog and BeVocal.

….or at least that’s the fancy title of the pilot project we’re running with funding from the department for Communities and Local Government. As announced by Hazel Blears, Birmingham is one of ten English councils who secured funding for a ‘Timely Information for Citizens’ pilot project.

The idea behind ‘Birmingham - Open City’ is to develop a community of practice around developing new resources to empower citizens. When Digital Birmingham were working up the bid we went on the basis that we shouldn’t presume what kind of services could be developed, or indeed, what kind of data sources could be made available to develop them. Instead we’re focusing on putting some resource into generating the collaborations, discussions, creativity and debate from which new services can spring.

More - Birmingham - Open City

Takeaways? Alcohol? Swearing? Many people will be 8 days in, perhaps finding giving up their vice difficult already. However, Italian priests have called on their followers to give up technology such as texting, social networking and computer games so Italy’s physical social interaction can dominate once again. Digital Birmingham’s very own Dave Harte has given up Twitter, but I don’t think the Archbishop of Modena had much to do with his decision……….

More - What have you given up for Lent?

Ed Gibson, Chief Cyber Security Adviser at Microsoft

Next Tuesday is International Safer Internet Day, which provides a focus to look at how to help our youngsters stay safe online and ensure that they grow up knowing how to behave and act responsibly when surfing and chatting on social networking sites or even gaming online.

The internet is probably one of the most significant digital technologies for the children of our time - it’s become a vital tool for homework, as well as being their playground and entertainment centre all in one. Facebook celebrated its 5th birthday on Wednesday with a staggering 150 million users where many see it as central to keeping track of their social life and what’s on. More - Being safe and secure online is paramount

It’s a year since the government published its Creative Britain report, the culmination of a long process of consultation with the creative industries. The publication was seen as a positive cross-departmental initiative that re-stated the government’s commitment to what is a significant part of the economy. A year on we get Digital Britain and in general, everyone seems a bit grumpy about it. So what did ‘Creative’ have that ‘Digital’ doesn’t?

More - Digital Britain vs Creative Britain - FIGHT!

If there’s one area that many commentators think social media can make significant impact on it’s democracy and participation. You only have to read Clay Shirky’s notion of ‘cognitive surplus‘ to see exactly how much power people think can be released. Whether or not you think Shirky over-plays the argument social Media spaces are indeed packed full of people with passionate causes and a desire for change.

But there’s evidence here in Birmingham that citizens want to control the space and the terms under which they participate. The City is currently consulting on the Big City Plan, a strategy to help shape how the city centre is organised. There’s plenty of ways to engage with it, via post, through the facebook group, or at the online consultation. However, a group of bloggers have now decided that the original document was just a little too, erm, overly-intricate, for general consumption so have taken it upon themselves to do a plain english translation.

More - Plain talking