Techno-optimists launch another 'digital divide' initiative

Just when I thought digital inclusion was waning as a policy idea - previous thoughts here - in comes an invitation to join the Alliance for Digital Inclusion.

This industry body aims to:
* Create an industry-led umbrella initiative that will encourage collaboration
* Provide targeted, scalable and sustainable solutions
* Encourage new players to become involved
* Engage with and influence Government on key policy issues

The URL www.alliancefordigitalinclusion.org.uk redirects to Citizens Online, who have been doing good work with sympathetic corporates for some years, so I guess it is really a consolidation of their activities.

The press release explains the establishment of the ADI is a recommendation of the Government’s Digital Inclusion Panel (DIP) report. The report recommends the formation of an industry-led body to encourage digital take-up through social enterprise, supported by corporate social responsibility initiatives, and states that, “the organisation should build on the many different projects that exist regionally and locally, and should create new partnerships and joined-up initiatives within existing organisational frameworks. ”
The invitation to join explains that there is no money available from the Alliance. They want to act as a strategic body for the promotion of digital inclusion, and promote good practice. Hmmm. Is that a way for all the corporate sponsors to look good by association without doing much to help.... or will there be ways in which the industry can help nonprofits? I'll suspend judgement because chief executive John Fisher and Gail Bradbrook at Citizens Online are helpful in running events and sharing their excellent contacts, and often that can be as useful as tightly-defined grants and awards. I'm just a bit sceptical of any initiative that claims it is "set to drive social change through the use of ICT."
In May 2003 Nicholas G Carr caused a stir with an article IT doesn't matter.

In this article, published in the May 2003 edition of the Harvard Business Review, I examine the evolution of information technology in business and show that it follows a pattern strikingly similar to that of earlier technologies like railroads and electric power. For a brief period, as they are being built into the infrastructure of commerce, these "infrastructural technologies," as I call them, open opportunities for forward-looking companies to gain strong competitive advantages. But as their availability increases and their cost decreases - as they become ubiquitous - they become commodity inputs. From a strategic standpoint, they become invisible; they no longer matter.

My sense is that on the social front too technology does of course change the landscape, does offer a new set of tools - but mostly wakes us up to old cultural and personal issues of what it takes to engage, collaborate, support. Thinking otherwise leads us into the technology trap. It is important that people who can benefit from technology are not excluded ... but that is rather different from the assertion that technology can be in the lead in social change.
In fact the logos on the Alliance site lead to interesting and helpful programmes - so maybe it is a matter of language, and neither digital divide nor digital inclusion are useful labels for projects that are mainly aimed at doing good stuff... with some tech as part of the mix.