The Digital Inclusion team recently made their way to Southwark to host our very first local authority symposium. The event kicked off a series of symposia that will take place across England in the next few weeks. This is really exciting as it was an opportunity for Local Authority representatives to gather and share their experiences and thoughts on issues relating to Digital Inclusion (and Assisted Digital).
Purpose of the Digital Inclusion Symposium
The symposium brought together representatives from a range of different London local authorities including Camden, Croydon, Southwark, Newham, Lambeth. It was a brilliant opportunity for the Digital Inclusion team to to meet with experienced staff that have key pieces of Digital Inclusion and Assisted Digital activity taking place within their communities. The symposium provided a great platform to exchange knowledge and was useful in highlighting the challenges that are currently being faced. Also, quite importantly, we are hoping that the outputs of the symposia will help to advise and inform the Digital Inclusion Strategy currently under development.
What did the symposium involve?
After introductions and some lunch we jumped straight into the afternoon with presentations.
Jon Rimmer from Digital Inclusion and Angela Collins-Rees from Assisted Digital outlined the purpose of the event and how it was hoped that we could work effectively and collaboratively with local authorities to deliver our digital inclusion ambitions.
What next?
Now that we have successfully organised our first symposium, it seems like a good idea to hit the road and visit a few more locations so we can understand even more about the different communities and digital inclusion work that’s taking place. The next symposium will take place in Cambridge on January 15th and soon after that, we will hopefully be heading to Manchester!