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Last week, we kicked off The Decade of Digital Inclusion, our event series that brings together a dream team of panelists who work in corporate technology, academia, policy, and digital inclusion advocacy. Through this first-of-its-kind series, we are developing a community of visionary experts who will be critical to solving digital exclusion.
From affordability to infrastructure to governance, barriers to full digital inclusion are varied, geographically specific, and interconnected with other socioeconomic divides. Without robust, aligned collaboration among leaders from technology, policy, and digital inclusion advocacy, we cannot hope to address these complex inequalities.
The Decade of Digital Inclusion is the Marconi Society’s answer to this challenge.
During our first session on September 15, The Issues That Keep Us Up at Night, Marconi Fellow Sir David Payne moderated a discussion that set the stage for some of the questions we will explore throughout the event series. Panelists included:
Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google; Chairman of the Board, Marconi Society
Jane Coffin, VP of Internet Growth, Internet Society
Joseph Kakande, Network Engineering, Facebook
Muriel Médard, Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
Colin Rhinesmith, Associate Professor and Director of Community Informatics Lab, Simmons University
We’re providing a short summary of the main discussion points from the panel session. If you’d like to watch the recording, you can access it here.
Four Key Questions:
- What does “digital inclusion” mean?
There are lots of terms people use to describe lack of connectivity, and they contain subtle, and not-so-subtle, differences. Are we discussing only the ability to access the Internet? The digital skills to navigate online platforms? The legislative environment that allows for a relatively free exchange of ideas?
For purposes of the event series The Decade of Digital Inclusion, the term applies to the entire experience of accessing and using the Internet to create the opportunities that each individual needs., We need to include safety, security, services, content, digital literacy, and freedom of expression in our definition, in addition to access and affordability. For example, if communities cannot access relevant content in their own language, access to the Internet does not enhance their lives.
As the digital inclusion community has grown, our understanding of the challenges has grown, too. We need to consider how we can measure digital inclusion beyond basic connectivity statistics—which are difficult enough. What is the full picture of digital inclusion? Conversations ranging from security lessons learned to the role of government in ensuring Internet access for all to how we create socially responsible artificial intelligence—and so much more—will help shape our views on the full range of digital inclusion.
- Is digital inclusion mainly a technical or socioeconomic issue?
While advances in wireless communications, data management, and advanced computing may ultimately improve affordability and accessibility, they cannot entirely address inequalities caused by geography, racial disparities, cultural barriers, or other socioeconomic aspects of the digital divide.
While technologists can generally solve technical problems, the nature of digital exclusion requires a collaborative approach that accounts for policy (funding, regulations, standards), technology (infrastructure, devices, privacy), and the needs of the communities seeking connectivity. Rhinesmith refers to this as “digital equity ecosystems,” or the broader socio-technical environments people live and work in. We expect to see unexpected intersections and areas for collaboration as we bring together technologists, policy makers and digital inclusion advocates at this event series.
- How do we deliver digital inclusion to everyone as a basic human right?
The pandemic has exposed problems and costs that digital inclusion advocates have been highlighting for years. Connectivity is now widely recognized as a basic human right, as crucial as electricity and water. Globally and within the US, there is increased funding and attention to creating a digitally inclusive society. Part of this drive for equity requires having fast, secure, and highly usable technology available to those who are un- or under-connected.
Business models that make sense are at the heart of this quest. How much can we rely on the open market to ensure that everyone has affordable access to the services they need? How do we bring about progress in the regulatory environment to achieve equitable access without stifling technical innovation? When policy makers fail to respond to the quickly changing technological environment and its impact on business, culture, and education, they develop regulations that are soon out of date and useless at best, or overly restrictive and inaccurate at worst.
Additionally, training and workforce development are key elements of establishing sustainable, community-driven connectivity. As emerging countries build their infrastructure, they need to invest in the people who will maintain and populate a local network with content and services relevant to their user base.
The Decade of Digital Inclusion will feature inside looks at how organizations from the ITU to the FCC to local community networks are working to ensure connectivity as a human right.
- Are we at the start of a major revolution in digital communications?
As communications technology becomes more essential to the roughly 60% of the world who are connected, the impact of the digital divide worsens; the economic, communal, and educational cost of being unconnected gets higher every year. In a culture increasingly focused on wealth inequality and its consequences, this question is particularly relevant.
But new communications technology and its cultural impact has been the focus of social backlash for hundreds of years, and the barriers that drive inequalities have remained the same: economics, geography, politics, race, gender, education. Are we playing out the same social process with new technology? The unique blend of perspectives at The Decade of Digital Inclusion will look at both sides of this question and discuss where we are at the brink of revolution and where we need to guard against more of the same.
We hope you’ll join us for our upcoming virtual track, 6G Summit on Connecting the Unconnected! Featuring Mohamed-Slim Alouini (KAUST), Ida Jallow (UN), Baris Erkmen (Google X), Andrea Goldsmith (Princeton University), and others, this three-session track focuses on the technical possibilities, social impacts, and critical considerations of using 6G to provide connectivity for all.
Register for The Decade of Digital Inclusion.
