This blog from our Head of Digital Inclusion, Francesca Hall, outlines our approach to establishing our new program in Australia.
At Good Things Foundation, partnerships are at the heart of everything we do - whether that is at a local level working with organisations at a grassroots community level or at a strategic level working with like-minded individuals and organisations who are passionate about digital inclusion. This has been no different in Australia, where we set up an office a couple of months ago to deliver the Be Connected program, with Department of Social Services and Office of the eSafety Commissioner.
A couple of useful things we’ve been up to in the last couple of months include:
- Attending the launch of the 2017 Australian Digital Inclusion Index in August. The Index measures the extent of digital inclusion in Australia and is an important tool to help us understand the dimensions of digital inclusion and plan our support, whilst tracking any changes over time. The index shows people with low levels of income, education and employment, along with older Australians, people with a disability, remote Indigenous communities and people in regional areas are more likely to be digitally excluded. Take a look at the report.
- Attending the launch of the Australian Digital Inclusion Alliance (ADIA) - a collective that seeks to harness the collective skills, knowledge and capabilities of organisations across the country to close the digital divide. We’re looking forward to contributing to the Alliance in the future, advocating for the Be Connected Network and reporting about the support you’re providing and the ongoing issues faced at a community level.
- Finally, we attended an event in Adelaide discussing ‘Digital inclusion: improving the digital divide’ in South Australia. The event focussed on examining the findings of the 2017 Australian Digital Inclusion Index in SA, what digital literacy programs have operated previously and best practice for digital inclusion support. We were pleased to see the discussion recognise that older Australians (those aged 50 or over) are more likely to be digitally excluded and the need for support for them.
Look out for more updates over the coming months about reports we think would be of interest, we may reach out to consult with Network members to inform our advocacy work and we’ll report back what we’ve been doing.