Digital Inclusion, Some Immature Ministers, and a Young Champion Left to Create Digital Britain
Seems the wise old men of Britain are distancing themselves from the digital segment of the country. This is more than apparent in the appointment of Lord Stephen Carter as the minister for communications, broadband and technology, and the recent posting of the thrity six year old Martha Lane Fox as the Digital Inclusion Champion. The Fox affair of the two, is increasingly startling as she has once portrayed herself as an eccentric driver who not only drove at breakneck speed, but also parked any where at any sort of angle.
Meanwhile, it would not be fair if a glance is not offered on the term Digital Inclusion and its relevances. A conceptual term pertinent to the European Union technological corridors, it stands for the consolidation of an inclusive information society. The concept also stands for a determined effort to convert the digital divide risk to digital cohesion. It is also, in other words called e-Inclusion. The concept covers certain developmental activities pertinent to the cohesive digital society, such as knowledge-base maintenance, development as well as deployment of research and technology, appropriate policy development and dissemination of best practices.
The main objective of the digital inclusion concept of the creation of a fair society by bringing economic and social benefits to the economy as a whole, besides individuals and communities, can only be achieved by warding off certain negative factors prevailing in the society. The predominant factors that hinder a pragmatic digital cohesion of the society today are; e-Competences pointing to the ducation disadvantage, e-Accessibility pointing to disabilities and gender disadvantages, e-Ageing pointing to age disadvantage and the geographical digital divide pointing to remoteness or ethnicity of the inhabited regions.
The term that once stood for the ideal links between technological and social disadvantage that had made it a priority, has been replaced by the new expression – Digital Britain, at least in the United Kingdom. The Champion of the Digital Inclusion whereas, is expected to operate as a high-profile public figure that can lift the profile of this concept by acquiring support from the local and central government, the third and the public sectors and the industry, even while their independence has been maintained. This post is planned to be independent of government, although it operated closely with the minister for the Digital Inclusion, the cross-Government team for the Digital Inclusion and the cabinet committee.
Coming back to the newly appointed Digital Inclusion Champion, the general public cannot be blamed if they thought the person to be a bit raw. Especially for the appointment following the stepping down of a digital engagement minister who was generally deemed as a good egg – Tom Watson. If his stepping down was caused by the pressures on his family as explained by him, one would say that Britain had obviously paid the penalty for picking up someone raw to entrust a responsible post. It is more or less the same case with Lord Carter as well, who too has reportedly taken the bizarre decision of stepping down from the post even as his Digital Britain promise to the nation was due, as well as boiling.
With these resignation melodramas, the onus seems to have comprehensively fallen on Fox, the new Digital Champion. The all important question is; is it asking too much from a nostalgic girl who had burst into tears when taken to the Movie Heaven for the first time, a girl who cherished her memories of going to parties and spending time with boys, a girl who flaunts her possession of tawdry hats, a girl who whirred a lot at night? Should her most attractive part of considering George Bush a worry, or her best asset that is her regrets towards driving recklessly once, which had nearly cost her life, help her persuading the mobile broadband sector to bridge the gaps left by BT’s aged copper lines? All food for history.
However, at present the commoner is believed to care a heck about all these questions, not if she help the government provide the promised broadband connections to them at the base speed of 2Mbps, not if she persuade the warring mobile broadband networks to an amicable solution, and definitely not, even if she epitomised herself as the champion of next generation fibre-broadband rollout, but only if she emerges successful in clearing their doubt that why on the earth, the commoner who had just a phone line to boast of, had to pay an extra levy.
