Navigating cost and risk with opportunities and benefits to transition communities to be more digitally connected, resilient and sustainable.
Digital equity is no longer a fringe concept. To progress the smart city industry, we must empower all people to capture the opportunities of digital channels and technology in their lives. The pandemic exacerbated challenges in many communities that accelerated the digital divide in the most vulnerable groups. The need to support digitally excluded community groups saw Government bodies, community organisations and community members taking action through a range of means. As the smart community agenda progresses in Local Governments and across all layers of Government, there is a significant role in supporting everyone to get connected in the smart, digital age.
However, in Australia, we are still far from a digitally inclusive and empowered society.
We have challenges with digital connectivity across regional and metropolitan Australia.
We have community members who cannot afford the monthly mobile and internet bills.
We have community members who do not know how to use digital channels.
And worse still, we have community members who are being targeted by scammers online, taking their money and their confidence.
This is central to the work I do at the City of Casey as Head of Smart City and Innovation, and last year we developed a Digital Equity Framework to tackle this complex issue as a Council and with partners.
Digital equity involves embedding fairness in the development and implementation of digital systems for the benefit of all. To understand this problem in more detail, we analysed the Australian Digital Inclusion Index data which provided helpful insights to unpack this with three key pillars of digital exclusion. These are:
ACCESS
- Internet Access
- Frequency, places, and number of access points
- Internet Technology
- Computers, mobile phones, mobile broadband, and fixed broadband
- Internet Data Allowance
- Mobile and fixed Internet
AFFORDABILITY
- Relative Expenditure
- Share of household income spent on Internet access
- Value of Expenditure Total
- Internet data allowance per dollar of expenditure
DIGITAL ABILITY
- Attitudes
- Notions of control, enthusiasm, learning, and confidence
- Basic Skills
- Mobile phone, banking, shopping, community, and information skills
- Activities
- Accessing content, communication, transactions, commerce, media, and information, internet of things
During this research, we found that 1 in 5 households in Doveton did not have access to the internet at home. Doveton is also one of the lowest socio-economic communities in Casey.
This highlighted that to solve digital exclusion, we need to think beyond free public Wi-Fi. Due to the complexity of the issue and limited Council resources, the team developed a Living Lab framework. It is a place-based approach to testing and trialling technologies and innovative solutions with partners and community to gain feedback and insights to inform better services and offerings in Casey. For Living Labs, we need three things:
Problem: Understanding and researching a complex problem that cannot be solved easily
- Problem: Understanding and researching a complex problem that cannot be solved easily
- People: Building meaningful relationships with community members who are facing the problems we are addressing and creating partnerships with industry to test and trial solutions
- Place: A physical location where we can create a hub of activity for events, trials, pitch nights, and experiences.
Underpinning this is an innovation methodology that uses human centred design to understand challenges and create sustainable solutions that can be rolled out more broadly.
Over the coming years, the objective is to have a network of Living Labs that activate places across Casey to solve real problems in partnership with our community.
The Digital Equity Living Lab
The Digital Equity Living Lab is in Doveton, with Autumn Place Community Hub as the key location. To build partnerships, the team ran a process seeking project proposals to solve three challenge statements:
- How might we enable all people in Doveton, particularly those who are digitally excluded, to access the internet so that they are empowered to get online regular for a range of activities?
- How might we invest in and/or advocate for alternative means of accessing affordable internet and devices, in order to ensure the best value for digitally excluded communities?
- How might we empower and motivate digitally excluded people to build digital skills, increase confidence to get online, and to safely use the internet in an ongoing way that improves their lives?
The trials and activations will happen over the next six months to gain insights for current and future initiatives. There are three key streams:
- Community Activations
- Digital Experiences survey: Working with local senior citizens groups, the team conducted almost 100 surveys with older residents of Doveton and region to understand barriers and opportunities. The surveys were conducted with translators and the insights will inform future engagements with this cohort and programs to build digital literacy.
- Digital Doveton Festival: 165 Doveton residents attended the Digital Doveton Festival on Saturday 4 June at Autumn Place to learn more about digital equity in Doveton. They discovered how to take advantage of free digital literacy resources, Wi-Fi access and provide their feedback on future digital projects in Doveton.
Digital Day Out (Upcoming): Casey Cardinia Libraries and Council are hosting Doveton’s Digital Day Out, a free technology expo from 9.00 am to 1.00 pm on Saturday 25 June at Autumn Place Community Hub and Doveton Library. The event will showcase innovative technologies, including virtual reality and robotics, as well as online tools from jobs to training, government assistance and more. Residents also have the chance to win one of five laptops by pre-registering for the event. 2. Infrastructure - In partnership with Eco Renewable Energy, two new solar-powered smart benches have been installed in public spaces outside Doveton Pool and Doveton Neighbourhood Learning Centre, with a third bench due to be rolled out at the Linden Place shopping strip in August. The smart bench trials offer free device charging, free public WiFi, and environmental sensors which will monitor temperature, humidity, air pressure, gas sensors, particle sensors, people counting and noise levels.
Three bus shelters in Doveton will be upgraded to smart bus shelters in a trial being run in partnership with yStop. They will provide device charging, free WiFi and smart technology sensors, within a sheltered environment. The smart bus shelters will support local businesses and community groups by providing spaces for affordable advertising.3. Technology - Council is also partnering with Enable Social Enterprises to procure additional laptops for the library device loan program for Doveton community members to enable greater access to digital devices. Council is also rolling out a digital kiosk inside Autumn Place so community members can use devices on site.
These trials will run until late 2022, with each having an experimentation plan including measurement, evaluation, and engagement to ensure there are scalable solutions that can address digital exclusion and disadvantage across Casey.