Technology transforms lives

By Amy Fetzer

Today is Get Online Day 2008, yesterday was the 10th anniversary of StartHere. Both of these organisations work to help those in need by getting them digitally included. But why is this important? Technology doesn’t sound like something that helps a business be socially responsible, but if used correctly, it can be a tremendous force for good.

‘Technology transforms people’s lives,’ explains Helen Milner from UK Online Centres (www.ukonlinecentres.com). ‘People think that digital inclusion is nice because it helps people to learn how to use Facebook, but while that’s a benefit, it’s not the reason why it’s important. Digital inclusion is a tool – it’s a solution to solving people’s problems.’

One in three adults in the UK don’t use computers. That means a total of 17 million people in the UK don’t use the internet. This is crucial because in an increasingly digital age, access to many services is geared around getting online.

Studies have shown that being digitally excluded is strongly linked to being socially excluded. This means that the neediest people – the elderly, the poor, the disabled, the homeless – are struggling to access the services that could help them.

Vanessa is good example of this. Homeless and desperate, she was living in a car with man who was not her partner and three dogs. Desperate to improve her situation, she’d contacted social services for assistance, but was told that because she had been living abroad, she wasn’t entitled to any money. At her wits end, she walked into a homeless centre in Chester. As luck would have it, the centre was running a pilot scheme that put new residents onto a computer the first night that they came in. Vanessa was shown how to access services and information online and it wasn’t long before she found a home and a job. The pilot showed that putting people on computers had a 100% success rate of getting them off the street.

Digital inclusion can also help elderly people feel less isolated as they learn to communicate with their families online, while being able to use the internet can help poor students keep up by giving them access to the wealth of online information available to their peers. Better access to services is also key because as Vanessa showed, being able to quickly rectify an immediate problem like finding accommodation for an elderly relative or accessing healthcare can leave you free to become an active member of society and to find a job or otherwise develop your social capital.

Companies such as BT have recognised that working to reduce digital exclusion fits in not only with their CSR policy but also with their business development. This is because the more you improve social capital and help people become active members of society, the more people there are who are digitally included and the more people there are to buy BT’s digital products.

This is why BT have been a long time supporter of StartHere (www.starthere.org) and why they see investing in a company that builds on social capital as matching their CSR aims as well as the bottom line. Billed as ‘the place to turn to when you don’t know where to turn’, StartHere provides a vital bridge to link these people to the organisations that can help them. It acts as a single starting point which allows users to access information on a wide range of social issues from bereavement and childcare to healthcare and housing.

It does this by providing a simple signposting service, typically a website or information kiosk in a community setting such as a healthcare centre, job centre or library, which brings together up-to-date service information in one place but in a format that doesn’t frighten people who have never used a computer before.

It’s a sort of village agony aunt for the digital age which can tell you who can help you, no matter what your problem. The service is unusual as it brings together government and voluntary organisations in one place while providing reassurance that the organisations listed are bonafide, a reassurance you can’t get from a search engine such as Google.

It also trumps the search engines because in stressful situations, people have seriously reduced processing power. They can’t work out what kinds of organisations they should be searching for, or how to sift through the results from a web search when they get them. StartHere takes the user’s hand to guide them through the process so that whether their problem is bullying or bereavement, they find the local or national service that can help them.

Getting people access to the StartHere service is still a problem. Despite widespread recognition from Government on the benefit of the service, the fact it covers so many areas from housing to health means it fall between the many stools of Government departments. This means each department is reluctant to spend money on a product that serves other areas, or to make an investment in a service when another department will reap the financial benefit.

This is why corporate partners such as BT have been so important in the development of digital inclusion services such as StartHere. Hopefully the success of Get Online Day and the StartHere initiative will help Governments to look at more unified ways to support these vital services. With any luck, these awareness raising events will also help more corporates recognise the business benefits of supporting social enterprises which focus on digital exclusion.

Amy Fetzer is a freelance journalist and environmental writer specialising in CSR and sustainability issues. She can be contacted on amy.fetzer@amyfetzer.com. She is also is a member of “The Sustainability Writers Network” (TSWN). For more information please visit the TSWN discussion thread on SustainabilityForum.com.

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