An international forum was held at Farmleigh House recently. It was called ‘Future Forum’ and its aim was to create an action plan for ‘digital inclusion’ in Ireland. Put simply, digital inclusion means involving more people of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds in the digital world.
The event was co-hosted by Dublin City Council. Peter Finnegan, director of international relations and research with Dublin City Council wants to see a certain challenge over come. The challenge he sees is enormous – “how can an economy built around technology and research provide employment for people of all ages and educational backgrounds?”
The solutions are varied, however, the biggest challenge is where Ireland stands at present. For the past couple of decades progressive governments tipped their hats at the digital sector and continued with the housing bubble. This was despite the fact that the world’s biggest tech giants had set up shop in Ireland and hired tens of thousands of people and there is clear evidence that the digital economy is sustainable.

Users not creators
Over 100 business and educational leaders were in Farmleigh to hear Minster for Communications Pat Rabbitte promise 100MB broadband for every secondary school by 2013/2014. However, many asked [after he left] why there was no serious attempt to put digital learning and computer science on our national and secondary school curriculums. As one educator from NUIG put it, “We are a nation of users, not creators”.
Ireland will never be ‘digitally inclusive’ until digital skills are taught at every level in primary and post primary. Nor will we be digitally inclusive until those over the age of 50 are taught the skills to confidently interact with the social, commercial and mobile web. Then of course there is a huge swathe of the population between 18-45 who only know basic computer skills like searching and social networking but know very little about how to create commercial opportunities online or how to benefit fully from the commercial potential of the web.

Nasty numbers
Attending the Future Forum in Farmleigh was an interesting exercise, even for the numbers alone. Ireland ranks a paltry 22nd out of 50 countries for digital inclusion. It is only 16th out of 50 countries in terms of the willingness of consumers, businesses and governments to use the web. Most disturbing is the fact Ireland ranks a dire 38th out of 50 countries for the availability of internet access in schools. Whatever way you put lipstick on this pig, the fact remains, Ireland is in the Digital Stone Age compared to countries like the UK and Sweden.

GetYourFolksOnline.ie
Ironically, Ireland is also the European home to the giants of the digital age. One such giant, Google, has a vested interest in getting more people online and not just searching but using their web apps and conducting commerce.
Sinead Gibney from Google Ireland, who heads up the social action programme there, told Digital Times that it will launch GetYourFolksOnline.ie, an initiative to encourage people to help their parents or older relatives learn more about the digital arena. “If this initiative works we will scale it up and spread it across Europe,” says Gibney. “I think our generation is failing older people by not passing on web skills.”
The website will be up next week and a nationwide campaign headed by Ray D’Arcy will support it.

Digital horizon
There is no doubt that Ireland will benefit enormously if it develops a digitally inclusive society. Many influential stakeholders were in the room at Farmleigh with ideas on how best to progress ‘towards the digital horizon’. Now they just have to get stuck in and keep going. The same, of course, applies to those who want to learn new digital skills.

Dublin’s digital direction
Peter Finnegan, director of international relations and research with Dublin City Council told Digital Times that he wants to bring Dublin to the forefront of the international ‘Digital Cities’ league.
“We hope to achieve a road map to ensure that Dublin is the most advanced digital city in the world. It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness. We can’t wait around for a master plan to emerge. Everyone needs to do their bit. From Dublin city’s point of view we are creating an integrated multi-dimensional app for people to use to navigate the city and engage with the city. We should also have one WiFi system for the city that people can access. Other cities are doing it, so why can’t we do it in collaboration with the current providers and it would have to be affordable to do.”

email

You may also like: