Digital futures: the context

‘The Internet is more like a city than anything else. In cities there are slums, there are

palaces of wisdom, libraries, museums, art galleries, theatres, places of entertainment and shops. And there are places where you would not want to go down dark alleys, let

alone have your children do so, but slowly we let our children learn to use the cities and they

do.’

Stephen Fry

Global, social, ubiquitous and cheap

According to Clay Shirky, these are the characteristics of successful new media

technologies…

In the first eight months, developers produced 25,000 applications for the iPhone

Ten months later, the current total is at least 100,000 iPhone apps.

In the last nine years, 20,000 Windows Mobile applications have been developed.

Your phone can be a spirit level… an ocarina… a recipe book…

Or you can just govern a nation…

Photo: Statsministerens kontor/Flickr

‘Creative and digital’ - which comes first?

Tough penalties for illegal filesharing, a city council banning staff from using Twitter… are we turning into the three wise monkeys?

Photo: Leo Reynolds/Flickr

Digital Britain: the government’s vision

‘Investing in areas such as broadband access for every home and business and the move

from analogue to digital technology will bring benefits across the board, driving growth,

enabling businesses to thrive, and providing new opportunities and choices for households right across the country. It is an essential part

of building Britain’s future.’

Gordon Brown, June 2009

Three obstacles to digital inclusion: availability,

affordability, capabilityThe response: a national plan for digital participation

- and a champion for digital inclusion

Improving the digital communications infrastructure

• Better mobile coverage

• Universal broadband access by 2012

• Digital radio by 2015

Creative industries in a digital age

• Emphasis on intellectual property

• New approach to illegal filesharing - stronger penalties for persistent offenders

Photo: PracticalOwl/Flickr

Public service content

• New partnership between BBC Worldwide and C4

• Pilots of ‘independently funded news consortia’

Photo: Fred Smiff/Flickr

Research, education and skills

• £120m Digital Economy Programme - research & training

• Three new ‘research hubs’ with £12m each

• Technology Strategy Board to put £30m into innovation

• Estelle Morris Review of ICT user skills - recommends a ‘basic digital life skills entitlement scheme’

Digital security and safety

• Addressing vulnerability to technological failure or attack

• Emphasis on improving government procurement and management

Where we are now

- Digital Economy Bill received hasty second reading on 6 April, followed by third reading the next day

- controversy over intellectual property protection

- new duties for Ofcom to promote investment

- new licensing framework for radio

- new system of classifying video games

Recent developments

• Digital public services

• Social media

• ‘Next generation’ broadband

Photo: Ed Yourdon//Flickr

Local spending reports go digital

Free access to OS data

Anyone can use (some) Ordnance Survey mapping to create and support ideas

and applications.

Even the government is getting in on the act….

Information and influence: the rise of social media

‘the power of individuals to spread messages is now significant enough that no company or government can ignore it. This is happening here and now, and there is nothing we can do to change it’

Local by Social report, NESTA/I&DeA

Information and influence: the rise of social media

• untold millions of blogs - from politics to hobbies• more than 400m ‘active users’ of Facebook• 75m people have Twitter accounts (though most

don’t use them)• Twitter has turned into an effective means of

real-time reporting - or spreading rumours

Next Generation Access‘the foundation for an entirely new way of life’

• Unlimited broadband services• Available bandwidth irrespective of the

distance between the subscriber and the network access point

• Massive implications for public services

What about the ‘notspots’?

Recent developments - links

• http://www.localspending.communities.gov.uk/• www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/opendata/• http://innovate.direct.gov.uk/• http://www.broadband-notspot.org.uk

What about Yorkshire?

• Yorkshire Forward working since 2002 to provide specialist managed workspace

• Digital community in Yorkshire contributes £1.2bn to the economy

• 19.9% increase in employment in creative & digital industries between 1998 and 2006 - 17,000 extra jobs

• 14,000 SMEs and 20,000 freelancers/self-employed across the region in this sector

Key projects supported by Yorkshire Forward

Melt - content development project, leading to C4 partnership

Design Works - highlighting business benefits of good design

Business collaboration networks to support businesses in new media, music and design

The Digital Region project

• £90m project to lay fibre optic cable across South Yorkshire capable of 25MB+ speeds (UK average download speed is 4MB)

• It makes South Yorkshire the first UK region to have superfast broadband

• will serve 1.3m people in Sheffield, Doncaster, Barnsley and Rotherham - 546,000 homes and 40,000 businesses

• Wholly owned by Yorkshire Forward and local authorities - funded by ERDF

• First homes online in May 2010, starting in Doncaster

Find out more

• Digital Britain: http://interactive.bis.gov.uk/digitalbritain/

• Digital Yorkshire: http://www.digitalyorkshire.org.uk/

• The Digital Region project: http://www.digitalregion.co.uk/

• And for application developers: http://innovate.direct.gov.uk/