In 2013, over 150 leading UK charities have come together to fight for an end to hunger. This is the biggest campaign since Make Poverty History, and the first campaign of its kind since social media took over the world.

On Monday April 15^th Save the Children are organising a ‘hackathon’ with Comic Relief at their Vauxhall offices, with the intention of harnessing the talent and vision of ‘creatives’, from designers to illustrators, programmers through to video producers, writers and beyond, to support and strengthen the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign and help it really stand out in the digital world.

Since its launch in January, Enough Food for Everyone IF has attracted the support of 50,000 people who have signed up to the campaign. This is a great start, but they’ve got their sights set on a million more before the G8 in June, in order to demonstrate the critical importance of global hunger as an issue that a global audience is committed to addressing.

We at BIMA would like to invite you to not only support the campaign in spirit, but to utilise your creative expertise in order to help the campaign to attract the maximum level of support, as it duly deserves.

If you would like to volunteer your services and contribute to this exceptional project and a campaign that is likely to be a major talking point of this year please sign up here.

If you have any questions, please email Ama at a.uzowuru@comicrelief.com

Make your Smark: www.mysmark.com

MySmark has been covered by Irish Times yesterday in a very interesting article about social media, digital marketing and online tags.

Here is the link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0910/1224323791066.html

MySmark team will be soon on the road in US to attend:

> World Summit on Innovation & Entrepreneurship, 26-28 September in Boston (www.thewsie.org)

> DEMO Conference, 1-3 October in San Francisco (www.demo.com)

For more information: www.b-smark.com

Also check out www.thefantastictavern.co.uk

Farnham Heath End School (FHES) in Surrey has fantastic IT amenities and Farnham contains many choices for those seeking to use the web outside their own home.   Nevertheless, how many children realise they are the lucky recipients of these benefits and the huge difference they could make to a non-liner?

FHES is holding ‘Get Online’ sessions every Monday for pupils to help adults in the local area develop their skills.  In preparation, representatives from BIMA and Race Online 2012 were invited along to an Opening Minds* session for a morning with Year 7, exploring what pupils think stops adults from using computers and the internet and to inspire them to consider how best they can offer support.

After reassuring pupils we weren’t there to encourage an end to traditional activities, (a retort from one pupil when we explained our presence was “we should play outside,” while another exclaimed that too much time spent online will “give you square eyes”), our session started with the question “how many of you know someone offline?”  Unsurprisingly, the consensus was by and large a yes.

That’s where we came in.

The majority of pupils had used the internet for nearly as long as they could remember, primarily for learning and social media – In one group of 8, only 2 didn’t have Facebook.  We encouraged them to highlight the benefits of using the net and how it’s the way you talk about the issue that creates the problem.

Pupils identified the number one factor preventing non-liners going online as… Fear

Antidotes:

• Positive language.  For example using “and” and “can” instead of “but” and “can’t.”
• Enjoyment.  As one pupil declared, “ask them what they’re interested in… there’s always one thing they’ll enjoy.”

Pupils were later split into two groups:

• Group 1 took part in games geared towards better communication, such as a descriptive drawing game.
• Group 2 wrote guest blogs for the FHE Opening Minds blog, writing about their online experiences and later, putting themselves in the shoes of an older person going online for the first time.

The results of this role-play were brilliant. Here are a couple of extracts:

• “There is a leaflet that says there is a mouse but I don’t see or hear anything that squeaks.”
• “This is my first time… it is very scary going on this thing I hear people talk about it all the time put I never thought I would be on one. This is a big, big step for me and it should help me with everything. This thing in front of me is like having the whole world in front of me.”

It was fascinating to watch the children thinking about how their ease with the language and equipment surrounding use of the net isn’t universal and how they have the power create change by becoming Digital Champions.  Not all young people have equal opportunities and it’s vital to help open minds to the reality that if they are online, they are at an advantage.

Thanks to FHES for letting us take part and good luck with the ‘Get Online’ sessions.  We hope we helped open minds; students certainly opened ours.

*Developed by RSA, Opening Minds aims to help schools equip pupils with real world skills and competencies such as citizenship, situation management and relating to others.

This week (18th to 24th October) is UK Get Online Week. As part of its ongoing commitment to promoting and encouraging digital inclusion, BIMA hosted an innovation ‘think-tank’ session at MRMLondon on the topic of ‘getting more of the older population online’. Some current figures from RaceOnline 2012 include the fact that of an astounding 9 million citizens who have still never been online, some 4 million are socially and economically excluded – of which many are elderly. Overlapping with this statistic is the shocking knowledge that there are some 3.1 million people in this country who do not physically see another person more than once in a week. There are a lot of elderly, lonely and isolated people within that number, who could be given a new lease of life if only we could assist them towards joining the online world.

Represented at the session alongside BIMA were Digital Unite, UK Online Centres, RSA, Fortune Cookie, The University of Middlesex, University of Surrey Digital World Research Centre, the Post Office – and our special guest, Robin, a Rotary Club member and student of the Internet Rangers from Bournemouth.

The afternoon took the form of a series of group exercises. The first, “Why? Why? Why?“  aimed at drilling down to the underlying reasons why so many senior citizens are NOT currently online, and subsequently approaching the issues from a variety of lateral angles to come up with a set of new, practicable ideas. The consensus was that lack of motivation, lack of awareness and adverse media are very key in keeping people offline. “It’s just not for me,” was a phrase captured by each team. Cost was de-prioritised as an issue, since facilities and volunteers ARE available for the most part. The biggest enemies to inclusion were acknowledged to be fear and ignorance.

Anne Faulkner, UK Online Centres

We undertook three fabulous exercises to come up with new ideas, comprising  both carrots and sticks for our older population. Interestingly, the first one, dubbed ‘Similes‘, had the effect of generating a number of angles based on punitive or restrictive approaches.  The idea is to take another large-scale problem, suggest multiple ways of tackling it, then draw parallels with the issue at hand. We used ‘getting people to join the military forces’ as one simile, and ‘encouraging people to quit smoking’ as another. It was perhaps unsurprising that both examples drew out ideas such as shame, honour, reward, community, taxation and financial incentive as notional ways to approach the challenges. Some of the novel ideas that were engineered out of these as parallel solutions included introducing widespread mobile instruction units – ‘The cocoa & biscuits bus’ (!), ‘Coolest grandparent’ and ‘Internet hero’ pin badges, a ‘Re-live it!’ and ‘Leave a Legacy’ website, an ‘emotional blackmail’ TV campaign showing happy grandparents skyping with grandkids,  and introducing a gradual ‘digital switchover’, forcing everyone to get all services, including pensions, online.

Game two was ‘Pass the Parcel‘, an iterative innovation method which requires team members  proposing the most outrageous and unfeasible solution possible to the problem, and then transmogrifying it by degrees to something which might actually be workable.  Thus, to answer the question ‘How on earth do you get 100% of adults in the UK online?’ we went from ‘Everyone gets a handbag-sized digital genie who can lay fibre optic cable on demand’ to ‘a national telephone helpline staffed by over-65s, linked into local support networks to offer technical support and advice’. And ‘Remove people’s brains at 65 or over and replace with a wi-fi computer’ became ‘to qualify for free prescriptions, over-60s must perform an “internet healthcheck” at a doctor’s, pharmacy or post office, with incentives and rewards attached for successful completion – such as regular magazine subscriptions’.

The final, and IMO most useful of the exercises, was the one called ‘Random Words‘. Here, team members pick out nouns at random from a dictionary and then brainstorm connected concepts, turning them into real, practical ideas for getting senior people online. Here’s a selection of activities (some more achievable than others) we came up with:

• * Scout/Guide/Brownie badges for helping others get online
• * ‘Teach someone on the train’
• * ‘Pub quiz online’ – require people to find answers online
• * ‘Grandchild of the Year’  or ‘Loyalest friend’ competition sponsored by an older people’s magazine or show and requiring people to nominate online.
• * Multimedia storytelling platform – tell your life story, create your own tribute/epitaph, build a scrapbook of your life
• * GCSE ICT course to include helping someone else to get online
• * Sports centres and Doctors’ surgeries to offer internet training – “Healthy mind in a healthy body”

We all went away feeling that there were ideas amidst all of this that we would happily disseminate, promote, put into practice or investigate further. New links were forged, and BIMA has made new friends amongst stellar organisations who are well placed to take real, practical steps towards furthering digital inclusion in this country.

HUGE THANKS to MRMLondon for the use of their wonderful 5th Floor room and to Paul Sloane of Destination Innovation for facilitating a most useful, productive and enjoyable meeting. BIMA will be keeping tabs on the development of some of these ideas and will keep our readers posted.What have YOU been doing to help others get online? We’d love to know what strategies you have deployed towards fostering digital inclusion, and about any zany (slash genius) ideas you might have for tackling the obstacles.

Internet Rangers at Avonbourne take older pupils on a journey into the web...

When you walk into the lobby of Avonbourne School in Bournemouth you are struck immediately by the bright, energetic and business- like feel to the place.  It’s a designated ‘Business and Enterprise College’ for girls, and from the outset I see the evidence of a great attitude and the success that brings. In the entrance area is the trophy cabinet and numerous wall displays celebrating the school’s achievements in national business programmes. Not least of these is their first place in last year’s ‘Make your Mark with a Tenner’ competition, where four community-minded pupils set up an internet coaching scheme for senior citizens. Dubbed  the ‘Internet Rangers’, Ellie, Lauren, Beth and Simona, then year 8 pupils, have gone on to earn national media coverage for their efforts, and have kicked off what looks to be a long-term commitment from the school and pupils to do more towards the challenge of digital inclusion.

Avonbourne started to consider Internet Rangers at the beginning of the academic year Sept 2009. The four students set about researching and planning their social business idea and undertook a survey to decide how they would run their internet training sessions for elderly members of the community.

Two early decisions arising form the survey were that sessions needed to be run on a 1:1 coaching basis,  and that it was best to run regular, weekly sessions to better reinforce confidence and learning.

The first ‘class’ has been drawn from personal friends and contacts of the school – about 5 to 7 regular attendees come to the sessions after school every Tuesday – but the school has plans to expand on this and has already drawn up a ‘Phase 2′ to rollout over the coming year, to include creating an online portal and more of their own digital content to use for teaching purposes.

TV Presenter Valerie Singleton is a champion for older first-time internet users and a friend of the school

In May 2010 the Internet Rangers were ready to launch. They used BBC Webwise as an online tool for teaching their students computing basics, and began by doing some classroom presentations on fundamentals. In the first term they had their students writing and sending emails and finding their first feet on the Web. It soon became apparent that everyone wanted to learn how to do different things and work at their own pace. Researching family history and selling things on Ebay were quick favourites. The four young ‘teachers’ give up their own time to run the sessions, and have kept it going right through the summer holidays.

The taster sessions evidently worked, as the Internet rangers’ senior pupils turn up week after week to explore some more. They use school laptops, so have had to get to grips with mouse control and touchpads too. A few of the students have taken the plunge and purchased their own laptops for home use, recognising that it is the practice and challenging of themselves that will really start to get them comfortable with the ‘Net. Teacher and mentor, Kathryn Loughnan points out that it is a very daunting exercise to be faced with the sharp end of PC sales. One of  the aims of the Internet Rangers is to provide a list of computer ‘essentials’ so that their students are not bamboozled in the PC shop and can save their budget for the components they really need to get going.

When I visited, it was a delight to see four silvery heads bowed intently in front of laptop screens while the 13-year-olds patiently and calmly assisted them in their endeavours. Robin, a retired and well-spoken company director, was trying out his first PowerPoint presentation with help from Simona. I was impressed with his young coach’s calm and methodical manner with him; they covered off some basics, including file-saving, inserting and resizing graphics, and running a slideshow. Perfect elementary tips for Robin to compile a showcase for some of his classic car photographs.

Robin spoke of the fears that older computer users have; fear of doing the wrong thing, of breaking the computer, of looking silly and asking dumb questions – and also the fear of transacting online. He is a member of his local Rotary Club, where a significant number of otherwise enterprising older men have never yet knowingly used a computer. Robin wants them all to know what they are missing out on. He cites online shopping, the ability to stay connected during bad weather, access to government services and savings, and more choice in general as good incentives for people to get online. He was very pleased recently to be able to reserve seats at the Opera online, and to actually choose where to sit using their interactive seating plan.

At the next table, Keren, an elegant lady in her seventies, was learning French. Ellie, 13, was showing her how to drag and drop vocabulary boxes from place to place and how to check progress. They also used Google to search for French vocabulary websites around ‘The Family’, and printed a page off to refer to offline. Keren proudly told me that she too has just bought her own computer, and Ellie was helping her to practise at home by writing down tips and useful websites in a notebook Keren had brought along.

Another elderly student, Vi, was using her hour with the Internet Rangers to look up water conservation tips. A nature lover, she was really interested to see what was happening in the local area in the way of conservation. Having the classes to come to has given Vi the confidence to purchase her own computer too. “Sometimes they seem to have a mind of their own and do things you are not expecting,” she commented. “I am learning to ignore the things that don’t matter. I’m much more confident now”

I was curious about the age difference. Did the elderly students feel daunted or put off by their teachers’ adolescence? On the contrary; it is clear that the elderly generation are relieved to have young experts at their disposal. Besides, spending time with youngsters helps them to feel young and positive, and they are very quick at adopting the language and jargon of the internet.  There was a consensus that they felt no embarrassment about asking questions in front of their peers, and the girls never minded answering them because they are USED to being in a learning environment where things are very new to people. Robin was quick to point to the girls’ patience. “As you get older your learning skills are slower, but the girls here are very patient”. Keren praised the fact that the girls’ time was given voluntarily. “It’s always disappointing when the hour is up, but you know they do this in their time, so I’m very grateful, and motivated to go home and practise what I’ve learned”.

What do the youngsters get from this? A great deal – they enjoy the responsibility and the role reversal;  and being involved in decision making about the whole enterprise is invaluable for their employability skills. The recognition they have received in local and national media has been welcome too and given them a real sense of achievement. As well as being a way for schoolchildren to engage with their community and give something back, Kathryn indicates an important educational perspective. “This is an all-girls school. We work hard to introduce activities which put ICT into perspective for girls – so they see its everyday role in business, not just as the domain of geeks”.

Would the school consider turning the Internet Ranger sessions into a more commercial enterprise? Well no, explains Kathryn, as that isn’t really the point. It’s all about giving something back, providing a service to the elderly community and hopefully saving them some money! There is very little cost attached to the exercise, the resources are given freely, and the school has been successful in securing lottery funding, external sponsorship and practical help to take the project to the next level.

What’s next? As mentioned, the next phase for Avonbourne’s Internet Rangers includes the provision and enhancement of a suitable content platform. They want to be a hub and provide resource for other schools wanting to offer similar services. They are considering rebranding, and partnerships with major entities to help drive the initiative and generate publicity. With the right backing, Kathryn is hoping to build towards a schools’ ‘Rangers’ conference at the Royal Albert Hall in the next year, drawing contributions and examples and exchanges from schools nationwide.

During Get Online Week 2010 (October 18th-24th) BIMA members in different regions will be reaching out to secondary schools and colleges near to them to suggest and run similar ‘internet newbie’ events and set up longer term activity using the example of Avonbourne School.  One such school, Farnham Heath End in Surrey, has recognised how valuable this is as an extension to the nationwide ‘Opening Minds’ programme and will be doing some cool things with Year 7, 8 and 9 pupils for Get Online Week. Are you friends with a local secondary school? You are very welcome to join in!

More to follow. Please contact Natalie Shaw or Kathy Brown at BIMA for more details on this and how you can get involved.

What do we mean by digital inclusion?

A 2009 study by PWC showed that only 79% of the UK were ‘online’, defined as ‘having ever used the internet’. The report highlighted that in addition to the 10 million adults who had never been online, a further 2 million had not done so in over three months. That’s quite hard to imagine. It’s chastening to remember, in these days of debate about paywalls, digital copyright, the relative merits of the iPad, and the evolving role of privacy and the social web, that we are the privileged tier – and that there are still so many in our country who for one reason or another do not benefit from our online culture or contribute to our digital economy.

Who are the excluded?

We all know people who refuse to get engaged in the online world through choice. But there’s a mile of difference between having the skills to interact online if we opted to do so, and not having the means or the confidence to even know where to begin. Shockingly, of the 10 million who remain unengaged, 4 million are socially or economically excluded, and of these

•        39% are over 65 years old

•        38% are unemployed

•        19% are in low-income families with children

The above are the main focus of Race Online’s efforts, along with the set of ‘People who simply don’t realise what they are missing’ . Included in – or perhaps in addition to -  the above, many may also be excluded for physical reasons – rural locations beyond the reach of the current broadband infrastructure, housing without broadband or cable, the homeless, those lacking literacy skills, and those with visual or physical impairment, in long term care or in prison. There are also minorities who may be culturally or ethnically excluded.

What are the barriers to inclusion?

Some of this is very apparent from the above segments. We should perhaps distinguish between barriers to getting online in the first place vs hindrances to adoption – the things that put people off when they do venture online. Some of these:

•        Inadequate network infrastructure
•        Economic barriers – cost of broadband and mobile data access
•        Complexity – the daunting jargon-filled world of hardware, software, desktops, devices and online patois.
•        Poor usability and accessibility
•        Concerns over security and identity
•        Performance – of networks and of websites
•        Personal and human obstacles: lifestyle priorities, time available to engage or learn, indifference, ignorance and fear

What approaches are there for addressing exclusion?

Let’s think laterally about this. In a different blogpost I recently asked my readers where they thought the priorities lay. I  saw a good spread of responses in both poll form and comments – from those who believed mobile to be the primary solution, through those advocating peer interaction and community support and education, to those reminding us that no-one can begin to avail themselves of the wonders of the web until affordable broadband is on tap; and from those prioritising the importance of security , intuitive design and clear, inclusive language. In my view, the notion of inclusion elevates our treatment of design, usability and accessibility, search and findability to a whole new level. Then there is the question of just how imaginative we can get with tactics and initiatives for inclusion, how user- and community-generated content can be used to inspire, and the role of offline, bricks and mortar organisations in incentivising online activity. Communities, business, the arts and government all have an opportunity to form partnerships that will eventually make ‘being online’ a seamless natural exercise for all.

The variety of approaches we each champion only serves to re-emphasise the diversity and scale of the challenge at hand. Chucking a free PC into every home, or giving a laptop to every student is surely not the answer – but what about the role of digital TV, the lessons of the iPad, the benefits of blending traditional commerce, local media and community infrastructure with the online world? We’ve a cornucopia of implications and to think about in order to extend the choices and the chances for our digital community. I’m looking forward to being involved in many more.

Why should this matter to BIMA members?

We’re at the heart of the UK’s digital industry. As such, we have both a moral and an economic imperative to contribute to making Britain a fully inclusive society. BIMA has a stated aim of championing Britain as THE global digital centre of excellence, and so we all have a role to play and an example to set.

And let’s not forget the pound signs of success. The PWC report from 2009 identified some £22billion of potential economic benefit, direct and indirect, from becoming a 100% networked nation. These are derived from government and business efficiencies, from access to job opportunities, improving the talent pool, and enlarging the addressable (and targettable) market for the digital economy.

What can you do?

Here’s a three-point call-to-action for you to consider:

1. Consider your own local community, and give some creative thought to ways in which digital, traditional and social media could be combined to bring more users online and improve their experience. Team with other local groups and discover ways to get involved.
2. Visit the Race Online 2012 website TODAY, register and make a promise on behalf of your organisation
3. Get in touch with me at BIMA to share your stories, your viewpoint and your ideas, and let us know if you intend showcasing an inclusion initiative here in the BIMA member directory, or on the Race Online site. Or comment here. We’ll be staging some conversational, educational and thought-leadership events in coming months and I’d be glad to hear from anyone who wants an active part in those. Also offers of help in staging ’silver surfer’ events in association with BIMA’s regional offices.

What else is on the horizon?

•        BIMA and Race Online will be contributing to the agenda at a future TFTLondon event (The Fantastic Tavern is a series of digital industry social events sponsored by EMC Consulting), with some deliberately thought-provoking discussion points thrown in for good measure
•        BIMA will be working closely with Middlesex University to offer an industry-accredited MSc in Digital Inclusion
•        The 2010 BIMA Awards will introduce a category recognising excellence in digital inclusion. Nomination criteria to follow.
•        Get Online Week activity (October)

More details of these will be available in due course, and meanwhile please apply some of your amazing creativity to this issue, and watch this space.

As per the Race Online 2012 mantra: “We’re all better off when we’re online”.

Get involved now!

As part of our partnership BIMA has made the following promise to the cause.

1. BIMA will ask ALL of our members to join Race Online 2012 and make a commitment to helping the digitally excluded get online
2. BIMA will ask all new members who join BIMA to become a Race Online 2012 partner and make a commitment to helping the digitally excluded get online
3. BIMA will organise five events for Silver Surfers’ Day and Get Online Week
4. BIMA will introduce a new cateogory at the BIMA Awards to recognise significant contributions to digital inclusion

To get involved with BIMA’s Race Online activities please contact Janice Cable.