ABSTRACT. Felipe Fonseca is a researcher, curator, writer, teacher and producer living in Ubatuba, São Paulo, Brazil. He articulates projects that promote collaborative and critical appropriation in the fields of digital technologies, media laboratories, socially-oriented innovation, experimental digital culture and public policies for science, technology and innovation. Felipe is a founder and coordinator of Ubalab; researcher on the Ciência Aberta Ubatuba platform run by IBICT; head of Associação Gaivota which runs Gaivota FM cultural community radio station; and a frequent advisor to the Coordination of Digital Culture in Brazilian Ministry of Culture, especially in the Rede//Labs initiative. He represents Urban and Digital Cultures in the Municipal Board of Cultural Policies (CMPC) in Ubatuba and is a leading member of the commission that is implementing the Municipal Participatory Board on Science, Technology and Innovation (SiMCiTI). Felipe holds a Master's Degree in Scientific and Cultural Diffusion from Labjor (Unicamp).

During the last fifteen years, Felipe was involved with projects orbiting around the ideas of digital culture, public policies and social engagement. He was part of the group responsible for the conception and implementation of the Digital Culture strategy adopted by the Pontos de Cultura program run by brazilian Ministry of Culture – which offered access to digital open source technologies to thousands of cultural projects in all regions of Brazil (2003-2007). At the same time, Felipe was one of the founders and main articulators of the MetaReciclagem network, which amounted to over 300 members and created a number of computer recycling laboratories and related projects between 2003 and 2012. He worked also for Escola do Futuro / USP in the Acessa São Paulo program and taught at the Tancredo Neves Technical School in Ubatuba. He also produced four editions of the Tropixel Festival in the same location since 2013.

ABSTRACT. The Home Office, like the rest of the UK government, is involved in an effort to modernise service delivery in line with the possibilities offered by the internet and the digital age. User centred designers work in co-located agile delivery teams to deliver fundamental public services through digital channels. But research shows that millions of working age adults have never used the internet [1]. How will they interact with the government of the future?

We set out to understand how large organisations, intent on digital transformation make sure their delivery teams build services which do not exclude sections of the population.

In partnership with the work of the Government Digital Service [2], we developed a framework to support a digitally inclusive approach within a public sector organisation. This included activities to raise awareness of the legislative requirements [3], training for researchers to promote inclusive research practices and in-the-wild research to inform organisational changes and policy.

We used depth interviews, ethnographic studies and trials to inform recommendations for Assisted Digital support services. We partnered with UK Visas and Immigration to create a multi-channel support network for visa applicants that meets the government’s digital inclusion strategy [4] and builds our users’ digital skills.

We learned that delivery teams often don’t realise the breadth and varying capability of their users. Early intervention is effective and valuable in ensuring teams build support into service design and consider users with low digital skills from the start.

We found that researching in context is critical to gain an understanding of the complexity and interconnectivity of barriers and concerns that people have when engaging with technology.

We have shown that education, raised awareness and empirical evidence are promising tools to drive organisational change and set large public sector organisations on the path towards digital inclusion.

1.https://www.thetechpartnership.com/globalassets/pdfs/research-2017/consumerdigitalindex_mar17.pdf 2.https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-digital-inclusion-strategy/government-digital-inclusion-strategy 3. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/public-sector-equality-duty 4.https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-digital-inclusion-strategy/government-digital-inclusion-strategy

ABSTRACT. The ONS publishes Statistical Bulletins each year on Internet Access and Internet Usage. The bulletins describe the way that people use the internet and the types of activities that they do. The surveys are used by a range of people, from school children and university students to lobby groups and government departments, we work closely with our policy colleagues in DCMS. Given societies’ evolving relationship with the internet, the focus of Government policy has changed over the last two decades. From a position that encouraged the take up of the internet by the population as a whole, to one where there are pockets of people who are digitally excluded and need assistance in gaining the benefits that people gain from being connected. Eurostat and the OECD co-ordinate the surveys that provide the data we publish. This international co-ordination and co-operation encourages comparisons of the data across international borders and through time, however, despite the advantages, this does curtail the questions that we can ask and the way that we can ask them. The ONS are working with a range of international organisations, led by the OECD to develop the framework for measuring the sharing economy. There is plenty more work to do on this, including identifying the new trading mechanisms and patterns being developed, especially the more informal consumer to consumer exchanges.

ABSTRACT. For twenty-three years since its recognition through social scientific research, the digital divide has been one of the most fundamental and significant worldwide challenges and opportunities for policy interventions in the digital age. Large percentages of the populations of countries around the world have been persistently disconnected from the most vital technological advancement in communication in a generation and the myriad benefits and possibilities it facilitates.

The disability digital divide is one of the largest and most intractable. One billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, is disabled. In the United States, whereas the gap in the percentage of Internet use from any location by white non-Hispanics as opposed to blacks is 10.2 points, between whites and Hispanics is 12.2 points, and between whites and American Indian/Alaska Natives is 7.8 points, the gap between non-disabled and disabled Internet users is 25.2 points. And, while over time from 2001 to 2015, all demographic digital divides have narrowed, the disability divide has only decreased by 3.3 percentage points in contrast to a 20.6-point drop in the age divide, 10-point decrease for white versus black, 15.5-point drop for white versus Hispanic, and 5.5-point decrease for white versus American Indian/Alaska Native.

For the disabled, barriers to full participation in life in the digital age include lack of use of information and communication technologies as well as too little data and analysis to properly craft effective and efficient evidence-based interventions through policy and practice. Employing a nationally representative U.S. dataset, this paper contributes to filling this gap in understanding and actionable research. Findings reveal the importance of the disaggregation of the disability digital divide by types of disability; how various demographic and socio-economic factors impact divergent groups differently; the lack of relevance of the presence of home Internet service technologies on Internet use by those with most types of disabilities; and the need for further rigorous, nuanced research linked to digital inclusion policy.

ABSTRACT. Background: Many activities in various spheres of our lives migrate to the Internet. Differences in access, orientation and usage generate inequalities in the abilities of people and groups to do daily and ordinary activities fast and efficiently. More importantly, inequalities in access to and use of the Internet have measurable impacts on the life chances, health and economic wellbeing of people. As a result, governments try to reduce digital inequalities by giving people tools that may enhance their digital literacy. The paper is a part of a larger project that studies the leading government project is Israel established for reducing digital inequalities - “LEHAVA”. LEHAVA hosts classes in 30 municipalities in peripheral regions across the country, ranging from interlocutory classes to computers and the Internet, to classes on cellular programming. The project analyzed the short-term consequences of participating in such classes (using questionnaires distributed before and after the classes), and the long-term consequences of participation, using interviews with people who graduated from these classes 1-2 years earlier. Method: 42 interviews were conducted with former participants in LEHAVA interlocutory classes to computers and the Internet (30 Jews and 12 Arabs). Findings: Most interviewees pointed at "tangible" benefits, such as improved literacy and more confidence in job interviews. However, interviewees were more focused on less "tangible" benefits, namely the contribution of the project to their self-confidence in computer and Internet use. The Internet is no longer perceived as a mystery they afraid to use. Others talked about independence and not being in need. Arab participants emphasized the benefits derived from the course for employment acquisition; Jews focused more on self-development. Discussion: Findings demonstrate that, according to the perceptions of participants, state interventions help in providing tools for enhancing computer and Internet literacy. But beyond "tangible" benefits, which provide participants with tools to address immediate and specific goals, the study demonstrated the significance of such classes in acquiring "intangible" benefits which may assist them in addressing future tasks that require literacy in the online world.

ABSTRACT. The Carnegie UK Trust is a charitable foundation that works to improve the wellbeing of people in the UK and Ireland. The Trust’s Digital Futures theme advances activity that seek to maximise the benefits and mitigate the risks of digital technology in people’s lives. A central aspect of the Trust’s work in this field is a focus on digital inclusion. This presentation will highlight some of the key findings from the Trust’s research and practical work in this area – including the main barriers to digital inclusion, opportunities for tackling these barriers, the specific digital inclusion challenges faced by specific demographic groups including vulnerable young people, the changing nature of digital inclusion and the need to measure progress. The presentation also identifies the underpinning factors of successful digital inclusion interventions, based on best practice case studies from around the UK. Finally the presentation will highlight the different organisations and individuals that have a vital role to play in addressing the challenge and argues that we need a ‘mega-community’ for digital inclusion.

ABSTRACT. In 2017, Good Things Foundation published the Real Digital Divide report. This analysis of Ofcom data highlighted that digital inclusion in the UK was not just about those without access or skills; it was about recognising when people were using digital technology in a limited way too. There are still 11.5 million people in the UK without all of the basic digital skills. And those that aren’t getting the full benefit of the internet are often the most disadvantaged and marginalised in society. This poses a challenge for how to identify these people and support them to be more digitally included in a meaningful, outcomes-focused way.

Earlier this year, Good Things Foundation also published its Social Impact Theory of Change. Included in this is the role of the Online Centres’ broad spectrum support in supporting people at the individual and community level to become effective users of the internet and achieve the wider outcomes associated with this.

Focusing on these two specific pieces of work, our submission focuses on how Good Things Foundation combines quantitative data expertise with local, on-the-ground intelligence to: identify need; evaluate approaches to addressing this need; and understand the role of complex user journeys in tackling digital exclusion locally and at scale.

Furthermore, we will unpick the policy implications of this understanding and how this could shape local and national government interventions. In particular, we will highlight the need to evolve and widen the skills agenda to recognise that digital inclusion should sit as a cross-cutting theme in all work focused on reducing disadvantage and social exclusion.

ABSTRACT. In 2015, Australia’s largest telecommunications company commissioned an academic research team to develop a national digital inclusion measurement tool and underlying dataset that could be used to inform policy and programs aimed at alleviating digital exclusion. While there existed a substantial body of research examining digital inclusion issues in Australia, such research tended to either draw upon small sample quantitative or qualitative datasets that captured the complexity of digital inclusion but lacked generalisability, or large national datasets that provided reliable population estimates in relation to internet access but did not engage with the more nuanced facets of online activity. The Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII) is designed to complement these studies. It aims to provide a complex and comprehensive quantitative account of national digital inclusion.

The ADII defines personal digital inclusion as comprising three key dimensions: access, affordability and abilities. These dimensions are further divided into more than 52 factors covering such elements as regularity and places of access, data allowances and costs, and digital activities. In drawing data on these factors from an extensive national face-to-face survey conducted with more than 17,000 respondents annually since 2014, the ADII measures the digital inclusion of the population at three levels of geography (nation, state, region), over five annual time periods, and for a range of demographic groups.

This paper focuses on the development and refinement of the ADII tool. In part one of the paper we address how the ADII tool was designed, outline the survey methodology used to capture the ADII data and provide an overview of the current state of digital inclusion in Australia based on the 2018 ADII results. In part two, we highlight the design and methodological challenges of measuring digital inclusion and present a case study of an alternative approach we are exploring to capture data on hard to reach populations.

ABSTRACT. This paper will look at Digital Skills Partnership and Local Digital Skills Partnerships, including the 'playbook' to help spread good practice at a local level. Other topics addressed in the paper are: - Basic digital skills entitlement policy - putting digital skills on same statutory footing as maths and english - quite symbolic - DfE lead. - We've also been considering a Social Impact Bond model feasibility study to establish whether there are more innovative ways of tackling digital exclusion particularly in relation to age and disability - We will also look at the diversity/inclusion issues at the higher skills end e.g. gender diversity in tech

ABSTRACT. This paper presents an in-depth focus group study of disabled people in the UK that examines whether, how and why digital inclusion and related experiences matter for disabled people’s social inclusion and welfare. The study finds that people in the UK who suffer from one or many and of different kinds of disability identify two parallel forces as defining their digital inclusion: disability and personal taste, thus stressing the notions of intra-disability diversity and individuality. These are notions largely absent in existing research on disabled people’s digital inclusion and through them the study sheds some light on the complex and dynamic role that digital inclusion plays in disabled people’s social inclusion and welfare. On the whole, the study finds that digital inclusion makes a positive contribution to disabled people’s fight against stigma and marginalisation by: • Being of great practical help, ‘making life easier’ and assisting with relating to their health and disability conditions. • Being very useful for the conduct of everyday tasks, some related to disability more than others. • Helping disabled people develop more independence and be more self-sufficient, developing socially a sense of independence and confidence. • Aesthetically contributing to disabled people pursuing acceptance and drawing other people’s attention way from disability. • Making communication more effective (e.g., email serving as a ‘mental note’) and enabling disabled people to connect with others who have the same disability, something that it is ‘life affirming’ and increases their sense of belonging: • Boosting disabled people’s confidence in communication, as anonymity online makes them more open, confident and relaxed in their communication with others. At the same time, the study problematises simplistic accounts that do not demonstrate disabled people as decision-makers and selective actors when engaging with technology. Specifically, disabled people appear to be quite careful with technology and do not wish to rely heavily on it, as they value their skills and invest in their natural maintenance and development. Also, many have a love-hate relationship with technology and are critical of the ambivalent role of online health groups and forums wherein they often experience negative feelings, discouragement from other users and misinterpretation of their words. Finally, the study offers some future-looking insights into ways to enhance the potential of digital inclusion to have a positive influence on disabled people’s social inclusion and welfare in the future. More specifically, it recommends for the future: • Streamlining of technology design, so as to combine innovation and range of options with uniformity and simplicity of design and thus achieve increased compatibility. • Technology design to be driven by intra-disability diversity, with designers developing an understanding of which disabilities require a lot more tailored technologies and services and paying attention to all disabilities, not only to some. • Further reduction of cost of accessibility technologies and services through offering built-in tools that do not require separate assistive technologies and which are continually tested and informed by disabled people who wish or do use them.

ABSTRACT. The civic engagement model is embedded in the ethos of the community media movement, but the role of community media tends not to be recognised within government-led community development policies and practices, at a local, regional or national level. The mass-communications model of social engagement predominates in policy development, service planning and service delivery, often leaving participatory forms of community media as an adjunct to marketing-defined engagement, rather than as a primary component of community development practice. Incorporating community media at the planning and ser-vice development stage of civic engagement projects will add a further strategic instrument that will en-hance civic and social engagement.