Martha Lane Fox (photograph courtesy of John Naughton)
A very inspiring session by Martha. Key themes below:
4m of these are the most socially deprived.
How do they break down?
39% 65+yrs, 38% LT unempolyed, 19% families with kids, 70% in social housing, 12% disabled.
Martha stated she strives to live in an equal society and that this is simply not the case if people do not have access to the internet and the advantages it brings.
She talked of both a social and an economic imperative.
1). The social imperative
She has set up a taskforce made up of people who have experienced the transformational effects of technology.
She talked about Mo teaching ICT skills to many for whom English is a 2nd, 3rd or even 4th language.
She told us about Paul, unemployed for 18months but who now finds work through technology, searching the net in the morning before the jobs go live elsewhere.
And we learnt about a project in Bristol where adults and kids are working together with technology to improve their living environment – growing veg in the gardens and taking photos, downloading them and sharing them via websites. Kids learning about how to grow veg and adults learning about technology. They now even sell the produce and it has helped galvanise the community.
2. The Economic Imperative
Martha has worked with PWC who have estimated that moving the 4m online would bring an increase of £22bn to the economy. This is via increased education and employment. She suggested people will shop more yet save money and that even the poorest familis could save £300 per yr.
But what are we going to do?
Martha has set up an ‘Intelligent Hub’ which has developed 3 themes:
1. Encourage peer to peer training. Learn from someone like you. Perhaps inter-generational. She asked if these trainers could be given qualifications and be paid.
2. Use intermediaries. Organisations are already working with this group in many ways, such as charities. We need to permeate into these areas and help.
3. Awareness raising. Only 46% of MPs think that digital inclusion is an important issue.
Martha also stated that we need cheap access to products and systems and mentioned BT, Microsoft and Intel as companies she is engaging with.
Additionally, Martha said that we seem to be very good at doing lots of little projects across the UK, but less good at joining them up to make them greater than the sum of the parts.
She said that entrepreneurs find networks, copy good ideas and plug into others to scale up. This provides greater impact and we need to learn from this approach.
To conclude, Martha said that it is not fair or right that 4m people do not have access to the advantages (e.g. savings, info.) of the web and we need to put that right.
Posted in: Big Thinkers Session, New media ecology, Uncategorized
Hello
Martha is right on exclusion of the poor but local libraries (at least in Lambeth) have decent computer provision and one can book a slot there to use the web.
If people don’t realise this, perhaps councils should promote more the services available to local residents?
Andrew Saxton says:
October 22, 2009 at 11:29 amReally good session. Inspiring stuff from Martha Lane Fox and telling contributions from Prof Naughton and Dr Grist
One of the big barriers here is the image of computers and laptops-the former are associated with work/employment centres/officialdom and the latter with people who wear suits. This may be a factor that limits the potent of the UK online centres (excellent though they are) as they are very much places where you have to go to use a computer, which is still seen as something that people use in offices
The devices that bypass this barrier are mobiles/skybox /freeview because they are either personal and or associated with pleasure and entertainment. People carry them all the time in the case of mobiles and they reach into people’s homes in the case of Sky/Freeview
John Naughton also made a telling point about schools ICT-why did my daughter have to lean how to use excel and build a database at the age of 14. These are things she might (only might) need ay work in 10 years time. It seemed designed to kill any enthusiasm for computers and the creative and enabling potential of digital technology.
juliansaunders says:
October 22, 2009 at 11:58 amPicking up on Andrew’s point
I think the new role of many libraries (as a resource where you can use computers and access the web) is not that widely known. Like many things that have been around for a long time it takes a while for perceptions to change. Your local library is so familiar that you don’t look at it afresh. Perhaps libraries need to create a national sub-brand to make this new role clear
Library (with “online centre inside”) just as computers have “intel inside”
juliansaunders says:
October 22, 2009 at 4:19 pmInteresting point from Martha about the country not being good at joining up small projects.
School related access to the online world is currently being championed by Becta in the form of ‘Home Access’ which aims to help parents and young people get online. Following some initial pilots planning is now underway for a national roll-out. The initiative aims to support Digital Britain; and as well as developing young people’s IT skills it also hopes to encourage parents to engage in an online dialogue with their children’s school through online reporting and feedback menchanisms.
Seems a good way to start to attempt to breakdown the barriers of access.
More info at http://events.becta.org.uk/content_files/corporate/resources/events/2009/july/ha_exec_summary_for_las.pdf
Paul Jenkins says:
October 26, 2009 at 4:55 pm