Almost four in five people worldwide see internet access as a fundamental right, a poll for the BBC World Service suggests.

The UK Government published its National Plan for Digital Participation setting out its goals for increasing digital participation and its methods to achieve this. The plan is without doubt good intentioned and optimistic but crystallizes some worrying shifts in meaning. Of the 12.6 million without IT access the plan aims to leave 5 million still excluded and has concrete plans to support access to some 300,000 at  this stage. Digital Participation is not the same as inclusion although the gov..   show all text

No broadcaster in the world can match the BBC and its critics should stop belittling it When the Conservatives' deputy chairman, Lord Ashcroft, revealed that his party donations are dwarfed by the sums he's withholding from the nation by tax avoidance, the Tories didn't panic. They decided the crisis didn't require large-scale political fire-fighting – a little squirt would do. But George Osborne's terribly busy these days so they plumped for Michael Gove. I doubt he was thrilled. Ashcroft i..   show all text

*********** Press Release For immediate use *********** WE ARE EASTSIDE An invitation to explore Birmingham's creative playground *********** We Are Eastside Open Weekend Friday 26 March – Sunday 28 March Eastside, Birmingham FREE *********** Online: www.weareeastside.org Print: We Are Eastside printed guide available from Friday 26 March *********** WE ARE EASTIDE: 7 INCH CINEMA / FLATPACK FESTIVAL – BIRMINGHAM JAZZ – CAPSULE – CRAFTSPACE – THE CUSTARD FACTORY – EASTSIDE PROJECTS – GRAND UNI..   show all text

What a great event last night!  Thank you so much to everyone that came, that presented, that shared links, blog posts and photos. The lovely @rebekahhah is still trawling through 30 pages worth of #NFPtweetup mentions… but, for now, here is a brief summary of the night: 72 attendees (just the ones we have a record of) 3 t-shirt winners 4 presentations 3 sponsors 1 great venue: The Westgate Room at Breast Cancer Care Lots of questions and comments via #NFPtweetup Some lovely photos 1 comic ..   show all text

Senior industry figures expect controversial measures against illegal filesharing to become law before general election The digital economy bill will become law before Parliament is dissolved at the beginning of April ahead of a likely general election in May, senior media industry figures believe. That will usher in controversial laws enabling rights owners to cut off or restrict internet access for users who download films and music illegally. The bill contains measures designed to combat ..   show all text

Government commission says more needs to be done to help young people stay in rural areas The lack of mobile phone reception and broadband coverage in rural areas has become the No 1 issue in dissuading young people from staying on in the countryside, the chair of the Commission for Rural Communities has said. In a report to the prime minister, Stuart Burgess, the government's rural advocate, said that the long-term future of the countryside is in jeopardy because so many young people are be..   show all text

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—"Whether you're Michael Paulson who lives at 3425 Longview Terrace and makes $86,400 a year, or Jessica Goldblatt from Lynnwood, WA, who already has well-established trust issues, we at Google would just like to say how very, truly sorry we are," said CEO Eric Schmidt.

Since I posted yesterday about the UK LibDem Peers' introduction of a pro-web-censorship amendment to the Digital Economy Bill, the Peers have withdrawn their proposal and entered a revised one jointly with Conservative Lords. Unfortunately, this amendment is even worse in some ways. In a posting on Liberal Democratic Voice, Lord Clement-Jones explains that his amendment is intended to attack "web-lockers," such as YouSendIt and RapidShare: The Digital Economy Bill, as currently drafted, only ..   show all text

At university we had hustings to help students decide which of their peers they should elect to represent them on their college's governing body.   They were heated events. We crammed a hundred or so people into a small room, gave the candidates a good grilling and scrutinised every word they said, throwing back difficult questions at every opportunity.   Before I went to the volunteering hustings on Tuesday night – the event hosted by Volunteering England at which third sector minister Angela..   show all text

Stephen Carter named director of marketing, strategy and communications at Alcatel, Lucent in Paris Lord Stephen Carter, who resigned from the government last summer after delivering his Digital Britain report and white paper, is joining Alcatel, Lucent, the Franco-American global telecoms supplier. His new job sees him become the company's director of marketing, strategy and communications. He will be relocating from London to headquarters in Paris. The company's chief executive, who recrui..   show all text

I am currently helping to create a website for a national Red Cross Society that doesn’t have a website yet. If you find that surprising, keep in mind that the Red Cross Red Crescent has 186 National Societies and many of them are in very poor countries where other things have a higher priority. And that is not necessarily a bad thing – after all what good is a website if you don’t have the resources to maintain it? Anyhow, this project gives me the rather enviable opportunity to create someth..   show all text

Older people and the less well-off are to be the target of an ambitious campaign to get 7.5 million new internet users online by 2014, Stephen Timms, Minister for Digital Britain announced today. Read the National Plan for Digital Participation (PDF, 665 KB) Digital Britain blog on the National Plan for Digital Participation The Government has set a target of 60% reduction in the 12.5 million people who are not online in the UK. The target underpins a new drive to reduce the digital divide in..   show all text

I found this great post on TechRepublic. Although the focus is on IT projects it applies equally no matter what project you are planning. So whether you are a seasoned project manager or starting your first project this is worth a read. http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1360&tag=nl.e042 Filed under: Accidental Techies Corner Tagged: Project Management, projects

Michael Grimes is Online Communications Manager at the Citizenship Foundation. The Citizenship Foundation encourages and enablse individuals to engage effectively in their communities and in democratic society at large. These are exciting times for civic engagement. The internet, coupled with interest from both activists and policy-makers, is throwing up new ways to test the relationship between citizen and state every day. We should grasp the opportunity to explore how to make the most respo..   show all text

Good luck sorting this one out, short-sighted lawmakers. An upcoming piece of major legislation in the UK, called the Digital Economy Bill, would essentially force all public wi-fi points offline by requiring impossibly high levels of copyright protection by libraries and small businesses. The bill, which bears some similarity to the controversial DMCA here in the US, is ostensibly aimed at providing copyright holders the means of controlling their content online. But while an ISP may detect..   show all text