In the digital society we are heading to, jobs, welfare services, consumption and leisure will be at a mouse click distance, incredibly close for some and irremediably far for others. How can we make sure no one is left behind? DFS opens up the question to some of the world’s top experts.
1. Enrique Medina
“It is people that bring meaning to technology, not the other way around.”
Enrique Medina Malo is Chief Policy Officer at Telefónica. Until 2006, he served as State Lawyer for the Spanish State Administration, Ministry of Science & Technology, Ministry of Industry & Energy and the High Court of Cataluña. From 2002 to 2004 he was appointed General Director for Legislation (Secretario General Técnico) of the Ministry of Science & Technology. We talked to Enrique about the digital divide and what the private sector is doing to tackle the issue. Read the full interview.
2. Kam Morshed
“The ‘data revolution’, which the business world has harnessed, is now more necessary than ever in development.”
Kam Morshed is Senior Director of BRAC’s Executive Management. BRAC is the largest non-governmental development organisation in the world in terms of the number of employees. His team uses technology to support data-driven decision making for BRAC’s more than 100,000 staff, “reimagining the services that they are offering and how they are delivered to people living in the most marginalised and hard to reach situations”. Read his interview.
3. Bill Dutton
“Getting people who do not see why they need the Internet to experience it is one of the most challenging problems.”
Bill Dutton is the Quello Professor of Media and Information Policy at Michigan State University, where he is Director of the Quello Center. He was the OII’s Founding Director, a Fellow of Balliol College and the first Professor of Internet Studies at Oxford University. Read his interview.
4. Julio Cabrero
“The digital gap concerns not only the access to technological resources, but also literacy, how well trained we are to use them.”
Julio Cabero Almenara is a professor of Didactics and School Organisation at the University of Seville, director of the Secretariat for Audiovisual Resources and New Technologies of the same University, and director of the Didactic Research Group. He has also taught at different universities across Latin America, directing a variety of doctorate programs. Read his interview.
5. Nnenna Nwakanna
“50% of the global population online means 50% is still offline.”
Nnenna Nwakanma is a specialist in open data, free software and e-government. She is currently Acting Policy Director of the World Wide Web Foundation, where she has worked since 2013 to promote open data, open government and the open web across Africa. We talk to her about digital inclusion. Read her interview.