Get Online Day 2009
Today, supported by Government, thousands of people will go online for the very first time. Today is ‘Get Online Day’ the third national event organised by UK Online. Last year’s number of 12,000 participants is expected to be beaten due to over 750 Get Online Day events taking place between the 19th and 31st of October. If you wish to volunteer or help someone get online, you can find your nearest event or your nearest UK online centre by visiting www.ukonlinecentres.com, or calling 0800 77 1234.
Stephen Timms, Minister for Digital Britain, opened the event by giving a video address in which he expressed not only the departmental commitment to issues surrounding digital inclusion but also his personal commitment to this area of work. Helen Milner, Managing Director for UK Online centres, said “Digital inclusion has come a long way in a very short space of time. Two years ago it wasn’t on the political radar. Last June, the publication of the Digital Britain report recognised it as a key factor in achieving social equality and economic success.”
The report said that people need to have the capabilities and skills to flourish in the digital economy and to fully participate in today’s digital society – and from this participation flows personal benefits such as: social mobility, financial savings, educational attainment, improved salary prospects, and democratic engagement.
The launch event is being held in Barnsley. Its Local Authority is promoting its Totally Online Barnsley campaign that aims to have the whole of Barnsley online by 2012. On Tuesday, Martha Lane Fox, the Government’s Champion for Digital Inclusion, also launched her Race Online 2012 campaign. Martha wants as many of England’s 4 million most disadvantaged people online by 2012.
We, with DCSF, are a core funder of UK Online and provide funds of up to £10m per year. These funds help provide the necessary training and support to get the 2 million people a year who enter a UK Online centre get online. The majority of the 2 million people are the most disadvantaged in society: at least 74% are affected by one indicator of social exclusion; over 50% receive state benefit and 74% are not in paid employment. However, the training and support provided by UK Online centres means that 64% of people progress to further education, volunteering, or employment.
The Get Online Day is part of a week of announcements and events made by members of the Consortium for the promotion of Digital Participation as part its launch week – not the snappiest title I know. The Consortium was launched by Stephen Timms as part of the Digital Britain programme last Thursday 15th October – the membership ranges from broadcasters to telecoms companies, to small grassroots organisations. The Consortium will ensure that the activity by Government, Industry and third sector organisations to get people online is coordinated so that we can collaborate, create and maximise inclusion opportunities. It will deliver a National Plan for Digital Participation in the first quarter of 2010 that will focus on engaging the 15 million unconnected UK citizens, a social marketing programme to promote the benefits of being online, and an outreach programme that targets the hard to reach to help them get online.
Other Government’s departments are also supporting the digital inclusion agenda. One upcoming Government programme is the launch of the national roll out of the Home Access programme, led by DCSF and BECTA, in December. The programme – backed by a £300m investment fund – will ensure that all young people between 7 – and 19-years-old whose families are socially and digitally excluded (around 700, 000) are able to have access to free broadband and a free computer at home, through a voucher scheme.
Get online day is a fantastic way to get people who don’t access the web online.
Pesky People campaign wants to empower Deaf and Disabled people to use the web and complain where it is inaccessible.
Until website providers make their websites fully accessible we will not have that access. As only 1% are there is a long long way to go.
Until Digital Britain properly engages Deaf and Disabled people and looks at the barriers that not only the physical world puts upon us but the digital world as well – there will be no digital engagement for us.
Today Pesky People undergoes a digital makeover – thanks to funding support from The Media Trust and The Learning Centre.
Delivered by Talk About Local team and web designer ScotchEgg had lots of discussion not only about content but also how to make a site completely accessible using wordpress.
Check out our blog: http://www.peskypeople.wordpress.com
Twitter: @alisonvsmith or follow the hashtag #digmkovr
Congratulations on Get Online Day. I enjoyed all the activity. We have over 300 registered 60plus mentors on horsesmouth.co.uk. They spend on average 70 minutes per week mentoring on the site interacting with an average of 12 other people (mentees). For many of them it’s their principle online activity and the only social site on which they have a profile. For some it is actually their lifeline. I highlighted a few on Twitter today. Anyone interested in this over there?
We have 55 families here with no broadband access. They have tried mobile and satellite and that is no good. They can’t even get decent dial up as the lines are so bad. We have children who are getting detention at school because the teachers won’t believe them when they say they can’t download or upload homework.
We run a village club where these families can come for broadband access. We have computers taken from skips and discarded monitors. We cadge and patch them up to keep them working. We are totally off the radar. We are doing IT ourselves. Where is all this funding? we have never heard of any?
Which quangos get to distribute it?
Please could we have some? Any links or advice welcome.
chris
Sounds like a great idea and a great day. Are you planning a similar event for next year?
I agree that digital inclusion is a key factor in achieving social equality but the visually impaired have long been denied equity of internet access and I’ve seen no recognition of this inequality in any Digital Britain documentation. I support the VI in the use of computers and am continually frustrated by the inaccessibility of websites for screen reading software. Digital data has the potential for enabling everyone to communicate and access information but a over a decade on from the DDA people are still being discriminated against when they try to use the internet to shop, bank, book holidays, pay their bills, in short to claim all those “personal benefits such as: social mobility, financial savings, educational attainment, improved salary prospects, and democratic engagement” written about above. I regularly try to “help someone get online” but until the government recognizes that not everyone uses a mouse and their eyes to use a computer – that some rely on a keyboard and their ears – while there are others not even fortunate enough to have that much mobility –then “maximizing inclusion” simply cannot not happen. Digital Britain needs to openly and transparently recognize the need for accessible and – most important of all affordable – assistive hardware and software and look at measures for ensuring accessible html. That would go a long and welcomne way toward the collaboration, creation and maximization of inclusion opportunities