LONDON projects:

Digital Bridge
Digital Bridge is a concept and project founded by the Shoreditch Trust to deliver IPTV (Internet TV) services and interactive applications for local authorities, housing associations, education and health organizations to engage digitally deprived citizens.

Southwark TV
Southwark.TV is a Borough-wide open-access community media service created by Community TV Trust. It was initially funded by Southwark Council through the Education Department.

Newham Advanced Telecare (NeAT)
NeAT is a project of LB Newham, is a system that extends the Newham Network Community Alarms Service.

Connected Communities
Connected Communities is a community wireless project of Superhighways, which aims to help digitally excluded residents on a local estate to get connected to the the Internet through a freely available community wireless service.  Volunteers from the local estate have helped set up the service and make refurbished computers available to residents without a computer.

National Projects and Resources:
The following is a list of well known organisations and projects working towards digital inclusion.

ESD toolkit:
This is an on-line- service and active community for local authorities. Subscribe to get the full esd-toolkit suite of tools, maps, meetings and support services. Go to esd-toolkit

Digital Inclusion Team
The Digital Inclusion Team was set up in May 2006 as a result of a recommendation in the Social Exclusion Unit’s 2005 study Inclusion Through Innovation.  The Digital Inclusion Team has produced its own 2007 report landscape of digital inclusion activities in England.

Citizens Online
Citizens Online promotes digital inclusion, e-learning, uptake of e-government services, employability, job creation and basic skills, community communication and cohesion, social inclusion, etc.

The Alliance for Digital Inclusion
The Alliance for Digital Inclusion (ADI) is a collaboration of businesses, working together to promote digital inclusion.

Everybody Online
Everybody Online helps communities and individuals in disadvantaged areas across the UK to engage with digital technology.

Silver Surfers
Silver Surfers aims to allow older people (anyone over 50) to find out how the Internet and email can enhance their lives.

Media Trust
the Media Trust is active in promoting digital inclusion through community news channels, events, training and research.  www.mediatrust.org/

Community Media Association
The Community Media Association is a non-profit membership association for community radio, television and internet projects. The website has links to a wide range of community media initiatives.

Community TV Trust
The Community TV Trust aims to promote the use of media and new media in local communities. There is training in basic IT skills and video production, multimedia production and encouragement of awareness of mainstream media, in print as well as TV and radio broadcasting. It is currently active in London and Cornwall.

Digital Unite
Digital Unite (DU) focuses on the issues around digital inclusion for older people in the UK.  Currently it specialises in training IT trainers throughout the country to work specifically with beginners, disabled, older people in their own homes.

Sustain IT
Sustain IT is a project of UK CEED which explores the relationship between ICT and sustainable development, and seeks to demonstrate how technology can be used to deliver significant social and environmental benefits to individuals, communities and organisations.

Get online week is a new annual event from UKOnline Centres to inspire and help people to get online. With over 3,000 events planned across the UK, it aims to help 80,000 people get online with myguide. Get online week is from the 18 – 24 October 2010. To support Get online week, the BBC are launching their First Click campaign.

In an interview to mark the announcement of Government’s Race Online 2012 initiative, intended to bring four million more people online by the time the London Olympic Games begin, Lane Fox said it was “eye-opening” that charities often struggled to fund technology.

“They should be able to get money for core funding, not only for starting new projects………. Technology is not usually at the front of people’s minds, but investing in it can allow charities to work more quickly and effectively.”

That’s no surprise to us and Lasa has long been campaigning that funders should recognise that ICT underpins service delivery to beneficiaries and should be resourced accordingly. Recent research unearthed no more than 90 funders of ICT from amongst thousands of chaitable and statutory grant schemes.  Educating funders about the value of ICT is no easy task and needs all the help it can get from Government.

Lane Fox went on to say that the Government’s Race Online campaign would not fund IT systems for charities or give them funds to help their beneficiaries get online. But she said the Race Online 2012 website would include information to help charity beneficiaries to use the internet.  The Get Online page page points to a number of schemes – such as those run by Age Concern and Pass IT On – to help individuals get online and use the Internet safely.

Charities can head over to Lasa’s ICT Knowledgebase – an online resource providing the sector with quality jargon free ICT advice and guidance.

The Race Online 2012 campaign is expected to be launched within the next six weeks.

Source: Third Sector

Launched in January earlier this year, the site already features a number of useful apps:

Twitterplan – Sends direct messages via Twitter when a planning application is lodged in as a Twitter user’s area.

Mi-Voice – A secure, web based participation tool that allows an organisation to set-up and run elections, consultations or referendums.

WriteToReply – A community driven site for commenting on and discussing public reports in  detail.

You can also follow their blog and Twitter feed.

Digital Britain logo

Published yesterday, Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report gives more details about how the government aims to provide universal access to a minimum 2Mb broadband connection.

An estimated 2.75m homes, about 11% of UK households, today have no access to a connection at this speed. The report says 1.5m households might get access to next-generation broadband as a result of the commitment.

The report also looks at dealing with online piracy, the BBC licence fee and funding for Channel 4. Download the summary or the full report.

Discuss this issue over on Lasa’s ICT Cafe forum.

The event is about “digital inclusion” and showcasing the direct and indirect benefits communities can realise from local technology projects.

But just what is “digital inclusion” and why does the Government think it matters enough to put £2m into an alliance of ten Digital Challenge winners?  Here’s our mini-guide to all things Digital Challenge.

What is Digital Challenge and DC10 Plus?
Digital Challenge is Government sponsored competition which aims to increase digital inclusion, support business transformation and stimulate innovation.  Ten regional winners and national finalists – Bristol, Birmingham and Shropshire, Ealing, Hull, Norfolk, Nottingham, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Stratford on Avon and Sunderland – formed an alliance called DC10plus with £2million funding from Communities and Local Government.

DC10Plus have established a crosscutting, people-focussed agenda for ICT and digital media, which aims to increase digital inclusion, support business transformation and stimulate innovation.

Sounds good.  What’s digital inclusion?
The goal of digital inclusion or e-inclusion is to end the digital divide , a term used to describe the fact that the world can be divided into people who do and people who don’t have access to – and the capability to use – modern information, communication technology ( ICT ).

Delivering Digital Inclusion – An Action Plan for Consultation
The Government’s new consultation document – Delivering Digital Inclusion estimates that 17 million people in the UK still do not use computers and the Internet.  There is also a strong correlation between digital exclusion and social exclusion – 75% of socially excluded people are also digitally excluded.

The document calls for a Charter for Digital Inclusion, a Digital Champions and a government task force.

The consultation builds on Connecting the UK: the Digital Strategy (Cabinet Office 2005) and Inclusion-through-Innovation (ODPM 2005)

What do advocates of digital inclusion say?
According to advocates, digital inclusion has the power to: close the gap between developed and less developed countries; promote democracy and mutual understanding; and empower disadvantaged individuals, such as the poor, the disabled, and the unemployed.

A report into the “Economic benefits of digital inclusion” was published in May 2008 by UK Online Centres. The report outlined three key benefits of digital inclusion:

1. Digital inclusion is capable of enhancing opportunity for both individuals and organisations.

2. Digital inclusion has immense potential in cutting the cost of public service delivery.

3. Expanding access to ICT for marginalised groups is likely to reduce their social exclusion simply through facilitating access and participation.

What does digital inclusion mean for the non-profit sector?
An increasing number of public services are delivered by voluntary and community
organisations on behalf of the Government – according to NCVO, total public funding (from local and central government)  has doubled from less than £5 billion in 1996/97 to more than £10 billion in 2004/05.

Not surprisingly, the digital inclusion strategies of the Government and local government agencies clearly focus on the social and business benefits of delivering information and services online.

However, the barriers to digital inclusion nirvana are considerable – the Government’s own research indicates 17m people still do not use computers and the Internet.  Likewise, recent research (Summer 2008) conducted for Lambeth’s ChangeUP consortium by Lasa suggests that many local voluntary sector organisations face similar barriers to accessing and using ICT, which hinders their ability to particpate fully in mainstream services and information.

The stakes for voluntary and community organisations who want to engage with mainstream services are clear. As William Gibson said in 1999, “The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.”

What about digital challenge projects?
That’s in our next post.