The humanITy Digital Inclusion Manifesto
The Future
3.1 Web 2.0 has begun to show us how creativity might work in an on-line environment but it is likely to follow Web 1.0 in focusing on:-
- Pornography;
- Gambling;
- Retail and;
- Self indulgence.
3.2 Like Web 1.0, however, there is room for a massive economic boom from Web 2.0 as long as its technologies are harnessed to produce content that is wanted in the short term and has a 'long tail'.
Recommendation 5: The current model of intellectual property which rates all products, regardless of their economic value, in the same way, needs radical reform.
humanITy Partnership Agenda
7. It's Your Right - New Models of Intellectual Property Protection
- Analyse current DRM and related systems;
- Develop alternative models of rights protection, eg self protection;
- Analyse differential rights based on commercial potential;
- Assess DRM in a global market;
- Conduct joint study with recording industry;
- Publish findings.
3.3 Even if all these steps are taken, we are still left with some difficult problems where ICT could play its part.
3.4 Until recently, public policy has been concerned with the 'Final Third' of the population which has tended not to be interested in ICT but the policy of gathering 'low hanging fruit' will soon result in that figure being reduced to the 'Struggling Seventh', the least advantaged 15% of the population which will require a resource intensive policy agenda unless it is to remain unskilled and alienated. There is an even stronger case for the 'bottom' 1.2 million of the population which costs the Government £52bn per year. The challenge is immense because it will require a level of concentration of resources well beyond the use of uniformly delivered, target driven projects.
Recommendation 6: Government needs help to integrate the most difficult cases (the 'Struggling Seventh' 15% of the population) but this will need:
- A high concentration of per capita effort beyond Government resources or patience; this means, in turn, that:
- There will need to be a different kind of contract; The NGO effort cannot be 'Government policy, NGO resources'.
humanITy Partnership Agenda
8. Finding the Sun - Picking the Fruit at the Top of the Tree
- Analyse the sources of alienation;
- Analyse current ICT use by disaffected youths;
- Design package for high intensity training;
- Develop multi media social firm for training graduates;
- Design replication vehicles for project;
- Publish findings. [1]
3.5 As mechanistic integration policies via basic skills have failed for the most alienated and dysfunctional individuals and groups, we need to understand the nature and extent of incentives required to change behaviour.
Recommendation 7. Government needs to consider incentive as a means of reducing socio-economic exclusion and the alienation and social disruption it causes.
humanITy Partnership agenda
9. Make It Pay - Incentives for Alienation
- Analyse the levers of incentive-driven productivity improvement;
- Develop alternative benefits models to improve incentives for training and job retention;
- Develop models for industry to out-source projects to social development initiatives;
- Develop inter-ward twinning for production support;
- Second community project apprentices to industry;
- Publish findings.
3.6 Most people in the ‘Struggling Seventh' suffer from and/or contribute to a breakdown of community cohesion; but some of them (mostly males between 15-25, constituting approximately 2% of the population) react to their condition by resorting to crime. So far there has been little exploration of the role that ICT can play in building community cohesion through such measures as:
- Ward (as opposed to international town) twinning.
- Automated translation and simultaneous language/speech systems (server side audio).
- Facilitated media co-operatives to transform the use of the internet from football, fashion, pornography and music to economically productive activities. [1]
3.7 Even people with a high level of ICT skills are finding the internet increasingly difficult as they acquire disabilities; this issue has not been taken seriously enough. [2]
3.8 As the use of multi media increases, paradoxically, accessibility becomes more difficult. Further, in an era where creativity (at least in the Web 2.0) context is necessary, tools have not been developed to allow disabled people to create content. [3]
Recommendation 8: Government, industry and academia should collaborate to develop simple creativity tools for disabled and elderly people.
humanITy Partnership agenda
10. Make IT - Developing Creativity Tools for Older and Disabled People
- Analyse the likely impact of Web 2.0;
- Analyse impact of DDA, Communications Act and other accessibility legislation;
- Make the case for creativity as opposed to accessing and processing;
- Specify creativity tools;
- Commission development of creativity tools;
- Publish findings. [3]
3.9 One area of initial and now much increased citizen anxiety is digital privacy. The Government procedures for protecting citizen data will be much easier to repair than citizen confidence.
Recommendation 9: Government should establish an open forum on citizen protection.
humanITy Partnership Agenda
11. Locked In - Citizen Safety in the Digital World
- Campaign for open forum on Citizen digital safety;
- Analyse security systems for on-line, television on demand and commercial transactions;
- Develop generic security standards;
- Encourage Government to develop citizen security charter;
- Develop technical and social mechanisms for child safety;
- Publish findings.
3.10 Finally, there are some very big problems coming over the horizon that we need to deal with:
- The 'terms of trade' have now changed so radically that it is much easier to take a digital picture of a scene than to describe it; this has immense implications for our economy, culture, education systems and our global place (pictures are global, even English is not).
- The knowledge revolution means that:
- Knowing will be a skill of declining value whereas understanding, assessing, collating etc will become skills of greater value;
- There will be an increasing need for advanced forms of media literacy;
- This will have a massive impact on the education system;
- What we think of as 'plagiarism' is simply a harbinger.
- Content regulation will collapse as linear broadcasting fragments and merges with the internet. This is usually presented as a decency/security problem but it is a complex media literacy problem.
- Solid printing will have a substantial impact on mechanical and craft operations; so, possibly, will haptic force feedback systems.
- Off-shore call centres were simply a false start; the global economy will match price and skills ever more closely which will, in turn, make unskilled people even more problematic.
Recommendation 10: Government should understand the impact of digital imagery on education and the economy.
humanITy Partnership Agenda
12. Get the Picture - Understanding the Image
- Study the relative role of text and pictures in the digital environment;
- Convene a group to study the impact of imagery on the National Curriculum;
- Develop economic strategy for the development of digital imagery products;
- Develop exemplars of substitution of images for symbolic language;
- Study the impact of the growth of the image on blind and visually impaired people;
- Publish findings.
Recommendation 11: Government should establish and co-ordinate a permanent commission to monitor emerging technologies and assess their socio-economic impact.
Recommendation 12: Government should publish an annual "State of Technology" report analysing current behaviour, trends and future challenges and opportunities.
[1] humanITy is developing a Project, Finding The Sun, to try to address this last problem, see Partnership Agenda 8
[2] humanITy has developed a simple, cross platform design manual, Design for All Self Help (DASH) and is seeking a sponsor or a publisher.
[3] humanITy has developed a project, Make It! to address the lack of creativity tools for disabled people