December Is a Defining Moment for Digital Inclusion in the United States

Tell a Friend

What, exactly, do we mean when we talk about Digital Inclusion? This might seem like a profoundly simple question, yet it doesn’t appear that — as a Community of Practice — those of us championing the digital inclusion space have reached consensus on a definition. Some definitions available in the public domain include:

1. Digital Inclusion is the adoption and use of information and communication technologies (ICT)
2. Digital Inclusion means that computing must be affordable, accessible, and relevant
3. Digital Inclusion describes the goal of expanding the capabilities of computing technology worldwide to better serve social and economic challenges of underserved communities, both rural and urban.
4. Digital Inclusion is access to and the ability to effectively use information and communication technologies (ICTs)
5. Digital Inclusion means making digital technology an integral and beneficial part of everyone's lives, providing them with access to, and the skills to use, information and communication technologies (ICT).

Are we satisfied with these? Is there sufficient clarity in these definitions? Can we use these and other various definitions to craft a single, unified definition of “digital inclusion”? Maybe get started with something like:

Digital Inclusion is the condition achieved when an individual deliberately selects and successfully uses information and communication technologies (ICT) as a channel for producing, consuming or exchanging information, goods and/or services, resulting in a personal acceptance (or “adoption”) of ICT as a viable means of production/consumption/delivery and a willingness to use it again.

So why the big blustery deal over a single definition? Definitions serve many purposes. Besides acting as a rallying point for a community, a definition can be deconstructed to produce metrics. And why is that important? As anyone who’s ever received so much as a report card can tell you, metrics motivate. People behave based on how they are measured.

Given the growing number of folks who’ve become disheartened waiting for America’s national political establishment to come up with so much as a common and actionable vision for a digitally empowered America, it is as good a time as any to think about how we might motivate this nation’s leaders. And thoughts about “motivation” don’t take long to become thoughts about “metrics.”

Our national leadership simply has not given us a national vision for digital empowerment. But what can we do? Well, we could start by giving them our vision. Let’s be sure we all agree on that vision and that it represents the best of our collective experience, and then let’s just hand it over to them; that is, let them have it. Then we could give them some realistic objectives and the metrics to operationalize the vision. And finally, we could use those metrics to hold them accountable for enabling the state and local policymakers, businesses, institutions and civic organizations who wake up every morning on a mission to digitally empower their portion of America.

After all, the evidence is more than convincing that it is state and local policymakers, businesses, institutions and civic organizations across the United States who are the engines of the American digital-inclusion machine. So instead of asking the national leadership to step up to a role that they appear ill-suited to, let’s define for them their role — and their performance metrics — as our national digital-inclusion enablers.

On December 11–12, W2i will host its 15^th Digital Cities Convention, bringing local and state leaders together with national leaders for what promises to be a “zesty” forum addressing the issues around the proliferation and adoption of broadband technologies in the United States. A day before that conference, on December 10, W2i and its partners will launch the Digital Inclusion Forum with the mission of consolidating the voices, mobilizing the expertise, and supporting peer enrichment of digital-inclusion practitioners around the world. What better time, place or excuse do we need to:

1. Draft a US National Vision for Digital Empowerment
2. Set the objectives
3. Define the metrics, and
4. Resolve to regularly and respectfully hold our national leadership accountable for enabling the digital empowerment of America?

But before we can begin down this path to resolve the gaps and challenges we face daily, we’ll need to develop and agree on a single definition for Digital Inclusion. This all brings to mind one of my favorite quotes from Mohandas Gandhi: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Will December 10, 2007 be our defining moment? What are your thoughts?