Widening the Digital Participation spectrum in Scotland

On June 5 I went along to the Digital Leaders Scotland Salon event in Sopra’s Edinburgh office. It was a well-attended, round-table discussion on how we might build a national movement to tackle the problem of low Digital Participation rates and “create a vibrant partnership across the private, public and voluntary sectors to make a difference to people’s lives”.

What really struck me about the discussion was its extremes. I can’t say who said what because the Chatham House Rule was invoked, but at one moment we were talking about successful businesses doing more online and then we quickly switched to those individuals who are effectively excluded from the digital world. And it’s clear that we need to consider the whole digital participation spectrum by pushing forwards and promoting excellence at one end of the scale, while ensuring that there is no sharp cut-off at the other end.

The networking event that followed the Digital Leaders Salon was good fun and worthwhile, too. I saw many familiar faces from the days of the Scotland Digital Participation Action Group, and made some great new contacts. If we are to succeed in widening the Digital Participation spectrum in Scotland then it could be thanks in no small way to this burgeoning business community.