Member Article

Digital Multiplication - travelling towards a more-inclusive economy

The gap may have shrunk. Over the past five years the number of UK adults who are not yet enabled to take part our digital economy has been halved. Now comes the tricky part – helping the 15-20 million people (and a third of all businesses) who are still disconnected from an increasingly digital society.

There are many factors behind the upsurge in digital take-up. The arrival of better kit (tablets and smartphones), better broadband, easy to use ‘Apps’, social media, cloud services, ‘big data’ tools, easier on-line shopping and now, in the public sector, the scheduled ‘digital by default’ policy that is part of cost-cutting/quality-improving programmes for a more efficient government.

But all those factors are merely part of the wallpaper compared to the astonishingly massive voluntary effort that has been going on in towns, cities and villages across the country. The collaborative spirit of the Internet is evident in thousands of small initiatives that rarely get public acclaim but make a huge difference to everyday lives of ordinary people.

Some of these initiatives are informal - good neighbours sharing expertise – and some are very locally focused like ‘transition network’, ‘Locality’, and ‘Leaders for Leeds’. Some dig deeper into the higher skills levels and the needs of businesses and, like GO ON, leverage corporate sector for support. None of these however has quite the reach and impact of the army of 15,000 volunteers organised under the banner of UK Online Centres.

To understand more of the work of the Online Centres Foundation – and maybe find the time to share your experience – read Helen Milner’s latest report ‘The scale of digital exclusion in the UK’.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by David Brunnen .