IN a world where self-fulfilment is welcomed and promoted, it is crucial that people are equipped with the right tools for the trade.
It’s an easy task if you are computer literate and au fait with the latest gadgets and gizmos, but for those of us for whom technological advancement means a visit to the cash point, help could be at hand.
Take a trip to the local library and you
’ll see hundreds of computer training courses on offer. But what do these actually achieve? Many have barely heard of digital inclusion, never mind achieved it.
The term itself is commonly misunderstood and, while senior business heads and government officials battle it out to decide what should or shouldn’t be included, the people they are trying to help remain excluded.
Whether digital inclusion should simply be a case of providing the masses with a way of programming the video recorder or to provide practical skills such as learning how to surf the net or e-mail, the people such initiatives aim to help are the ones who continue to slip through the net.
The latest project to tackle the issue of digital inclusion, myEdinburgh.org, which was launched this week, could herald a watershed for such programmes. The joint initiative between Edinburgh Lifelong Learning and Edinburgh City Council is a turning point because it is the first project of its kind to address the issues at the heart of digital inclusion - the need to provide an environment within which people can learn for themselves.
Until now, novice users take a few starter courses and then launch themselves straight into a world that gives them 38 billion websites at their fingertips and a web-based e-mail service littered with spam, often leaving the user too scared to go back to the computer.
Suddenly digital inclusion becomes less about programming the VCR and more about equipping people with the vital skills needed to survive in the 21st century.
And that is precisely what myEdinburgh.org delivers - an environ-ment through which people with limited technical know-how can get to grips with surfing the internet and finding out what’s happening across the city. These are all factors that most of us take for granted, but to the people that will use the site, it will provide a chance to develop and learn.
From personal experience of working in the area, one of the greatest challenges of creating any form of digital inclusion initiative is that it must remain relevant to their target audience. This is an approach that has proved to work in community-based learning situations, but bringing this to the internet is a relatively untried concept and one that if successful is likely to be repeated across the rest of the UK and even the world.
The beauty of myEdinburgh.org is that it works on so many levels. It’s not just about providing an e-mail address, or a taster of the internet, but it is all-embracing. It allows people from communities across the city to digitally connect with each other, something that in many cases will never have been achieved before.
For the first time, internet novices can go into their local library and log on to the myEdinburgh.org site, knowing they will be able to check their e-mail and look at what’s happening in the world as well as what’s happening in the community centre just around the corner - without fear.
Digital inclusion is not about plonking the nearest technophobe in front of a computer and leaving them to sink or swim, it should be about bringing new opportunities for all. People should not be excluded from technology; the very concept of the internet was about creating a level playing field for all.
myEdinburgh.org is all about building the bigger picture in terms of digital inclusion. After all, if people cannot access the internet then how can they possibly take advantage of the many e-commerce sites, information and facilities beyond them?
Digital inclusion and projects such as myEdinburgh.org are not just important to the future of technology, they are vital.
• Tamlin Roberts is managing director of Edinburgh-based technology company MercuryTide
The full article contains 728 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
