Some Comments, Observations and Recommendations Concerning Canada's Digital Economy Consultation

Summary

This paper reviews the terms of the consultation in light of the recent Economist Intelligence Unit's parallel analysis for its "Digital Economy Rankings 2010"; examines recent developments concerning digital society development in Hong Kong where the objective is 100% digital inclusion; and examines and makes recommendations based on this for Digital Economy Consultation.

Submission

Canada's Digital Economy Consultation Seen in the Light of the Economist Intelligence Unit's Digital Economy Rankings 2010

It would be great but perhaps unrealistic to expect that any of those with responsibility in the Canadian Digital Economy policy consultation would be reading my blogpost on the policy consultation.

But perhaps one could hope that the folks on Parliament Hill might take a look at a report by the very highly regard publication and research group, The Economist Intelligence Unit's: "Digital economy rankings 2010: Beyond e–readiness".

This very valuable document provides its understandings and presumptions concerning the necessary building blocks for a "Digital Economy" and quite interestingly, those building blocks almost completely parallel the suggestions made in my earlier blogpost. Thus for example:

1. recognizing that a digital economy and a digital society are inextricably linked and that it makes little sense to plan for one without paying significant attention to the other
2. seeing the broad areas of digital literacy and overall education as being a necessary element in "e–readiness"
3. recognizing that there is a necessary shift away from thinking simply about "e–readiness" to thinking more broadly about the digital economy (and society) — the Canadian consultation in its details focuses almost exclusively on e–readiness related issues.
4. the inclusion of social and cultural matters as "drivers of digital progress"
5. focusing on "the levels at which consumers and businesses actually use digital services" and not simply being concerned with measures and policies in support of "access"… "our long–standing premise that progress towards a fully digital economy requires concerted action across all the areas addressed in the rankings"
6. recognizing that the scale for "Internet user penetration" should be based on 100% of the population now representing the highest penetration achievable in a country rather than the previous 75%.
7. E–ready governments supply their constituents — citizens and organisations — with a clear roadmap for the adoption of technology

On the index developed and applied by the EIU based on the above and related assumptions, Canada has fallen from 9^th to 11^th overall from the previous year (behind, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand).

The following paragraph taken from the conclusion to the EIU's report would fit most comfortably into the conclusion of any similar Community Informatics assessment of overall national progress towards the achievement of a digitally inclusive society.

"This benchmarking exercise has measured not only the availability and adoption of ICT (or "connectivity") in each country, but also development of the social, cultural and economic building blocks necessary for its effective use. More recently, it has also attempted to gauge the extent to which ICT and selected ICT–enabled services are being used, given that it is the use of technology which ultimately contributes to the overall economic progress of a country."

Digital Development and Digital Inclusion in Hong Kong

Regulators, policy makers, access suppliers in Developed Countries have a considerable pre–occupation with how to bridge "the last mile" i.e. the gap between the common carrier and the end user's premises. In Hong Kong, where I recently visited the concern on the part of regulators, policy makers and not incidentally civil society is how to bridge for the "last quintile" — that is the last 20% of individuals in Hong Kong who are not as yet using the Internet.

The exact figure of current Internet users in Hong Kong is in the low 80% range (follow the link to a very interesting set of statistics on Internet use in HK). The exact figures don't matter very much since it is the explicit policy of the Hong Kong government as per a statement to that effect by the current HK CIO Mr. Jeremy Godfrey. At the very beginning of his opening remarks at the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum and repeated again at the beginning of the Hong Kong Internet Governance Forum, Mr. Godfrey committed his government to specific measures, programs and budgets to bridge this last "social mile", Hong Kong's last quintile/20% of Internet non–users.

Mr. Godfrey went on to identify a number of the groups which together constituted this "last quintile" including seniors, families with low incomes, and the disabled and indicated that programs were currently either underway or planned (and budgeted) for collaborating with the private and the NGO sector in building this bridge. This being Hong Kong, Mr. Godfrey felt compelled to justify this quite remarkable program for social inclusion in the guise of a program to prevent the need as for example in the classroom to duplicate digitally based instruction materials with print materials to accommodate the children of low income families who might not themselves have an immediate home based access to the Internet as a support to their classroom work.

In this regard, the Hong Kong government is in the process of launching a major initiative ($500 million HK$–$65 million USD+/–) to provide subsidized computers to the school age children (410,000) in 300,000 families of low income earners along with an infrastructure of support for training, computer maintenance, and subsidized connectivity.

From a community informatics perspective, it need hardly be mentioned that the commitment to the last quintile is not about the simple provision of "access". Given the compactness of the Hong Kong as a geographical region achieving effectively 100% "access" is hardly a technological, commercial or policy feat. That the Hong Kong government in contrast to its Developed Country counterparts chose not to rest on those 99.9% "access" laurels but then chose to take on the much more difficult goal of 100% "effective Internet use" and users is truly remarkable.

The HKCSS is a consortium of some 370 NGO's in Hong Kong who collectively are responsible for the delivery of some "90%" of social services in the city. Among other areas of common support that the HKCSS provides are common technical services through the HKCSS Information Technology Resource Centre including website development and support; email, hardware and software purchasing and support; training; management of corporate technical donations; and technical maintenance, directed by Dr. John Fung.

The HKCSS through its ITRC and its member organizations have taken on the primary responsibility for bridging the last 20% and have begun a series of initiatives in that direction including with Christian Action (the provision of multilingual services for HK's remarkably diverse and significant ethnic communities), the Senior Citizen Home Society Association ; and the Hong Kong Blind Union (services to the blind).

Since these and other of the HKCSS consortium are working directly as service providers to the various "at risk" groups in HK they are quite familiar with the needs of these individuals overall and by working with John Fung and his team at the ITRC they are provided with the support, encouragement and information that they need to translate the perceived requirements of their constituencies into the facilities and opportunities which might be provided through the use of ICTs and through engagement with and use of the Internet.

Much of this initiative has been pursued through the HK Government funded and HKCSS administered Digital Solidarity Fund. This is an annual grants competition to provide financial support to technical innovations and programs undertaken by HKCSS member agencies as well as non–member social service agencies on behalf of their clients.

The "last quintile" initiative and commitment in Hong Kong is particularly remarkable given the way in which virtually all other jurisdictions have failed to systematically proceed beyond the broadly evident plateau at roughly 75–80% of the population who indicate a continuing use of the Internet in Developed Countries. That this should be seen not as a goal but rather as a starting point is something that the rest of the world needs to learn from Hong Kong both from the perspective of social inclusion through digital inclusion but also from the eminently practical requirement that only with universal effective use will it be possible to eliminate the requirement for costly and now obsolete parallel manual systems in many areas of public servicing.

Some Personal Comments, Observations and Recommendations Re: the Digital Economy Consultation

I started in the ICT game around 30 years ago (of course it wasn't called that back then) by working as a 3 day a week consultant for Bell Canada. My job there was to do a review of Bell Canada's proposed new developments from the perspective of their likely or possible social impact. Basic to the activity was the statistic provided by the CRTC (the Canadian telecoms regulator) that 92% of the Canadian population had direct in home POTS (plain old telephone service). This figure was widely known and discussed as a sign of Canada's significant development in the telecommunications sphere and not incidentally as a consequence of being a cold country occupying a lot of territory.

My job though, wasn't to boast to the world about this statistic, rather at the direction of the company in turn responding to pressure from the regulator who in turn was reflecting Canadian government policy, my job for Bell Canada was to figure out how various upcoming programs might contribute to a reduction in that residual 8% of the population. It was that 8% who didn't have POTS whether because of the cost, the lack of accessibility because of physical disability, or possibly because of the lack of service in various of Canada's remote and rural areas, which was of significant regulatory, policy and thus programme concern up and down the line.

In an attempt to reduce that 8% and to ensure that the figure didn't, Bell Canada spent a considerable amount of resources and management attention on developing low cost basic telephone service (limited calling and restricted long distance). Among other activities Bell interacted on a fairly regular basis with various civil society groupings around these programmes and reported regularly on the progress of the programmes as part of its regular reporting to the CRTC as a regulated monopoly.

In addition, and most certainly not incidentally a very considerable portion of the Bell Family's attention (at the time including Northern Telecom (later Nortel), and Bell Northern Research,( the primary telecom research facility in the country) focused on means for providing telecom service into very remote and rural regions of the country via various (then exotic) platforms such as satellites, micro–wave and radio. As well, the primary government owned research facility in the area, the Communications Research Centre also had major programs concerning remote and rural communications (presumably linked to military and defense requirements but with significant civilian applications as well).

The Connecting Canadians Agenda of the late '90's seemed to update this overall issue into the Internet age by looking to ensure that "all Canadians can benefit from this new digital environment" (John Manley, then Minister of Industry), but by placing the issue of connectivity clearly in the context of economic benefits.

The current equivalent initiative, the Digital Economy Consultation further narrows the issue by only referring to Digital Skills and overall with a failure to deal with the broader and societal issues and opportunities of digital connectivity and use. The themes presented for discussion are: Key themes being considered in the consultations are: Capacity to Innovate Using Digital Technologies; Building a World–Class Digital Infrastructure; Growing the Information and Communications Technology Industry; Digital Media: Creating Canada's Digital Content Advantage; and Building Digital Skills for Tomorrow.

The most recent estimate was that some 75% (2009) of Canadians were able to access Broadband in their homes. If one accepts as most now do, that Broadband is the communications platform of the digital era then this figure of 75%–80% should be compared to the 92% penetration rate which was seen as unacceptably low some 30 years earlier by our policy and regulatory structures.

Interestingly a recent report by the a Committee of Canada's Senate implicitly criticized the "consultation" and the narrowness of its mandate and recommended a policy to address the Canadian Digital Divide (to define "universal" as in "universal service" as 100% of Canadians) as well as suggesting a national Digital Strategy of which this would be significant component.

While the issue of "Digital Skills" is not unimportant, precisely what Digital Skills might be are left extremely vague with a reference to an equally vague OECD document. As well, the issue of how or whether "Digital Skills" are in fact, the way for an advanced economy to proceed given the extremely rapid pace of change and volatility in the technology landscape where the more specific the skills the more likely that they are to become obsolete with the next generation of technology (typically 6–18 months in many spheres of the digital economy). In fact, most digital employers seem to prefer to train their own employees on their own systems which gives them an opportunity to introduce employees into local corporate cultures and proprietary systems and local corporate knowledge and practices.

The level of digital skills for the small business sector which seems to be something of a priority in this Consultation is equally murky and likely as well to not be the driver of small business development argued for in the paper in the absence of a broader base of digital literacy in the overall economy and society (and educational system) This is particularly the case for mobile communications which is driving a large proportion of the digital innovation in most parts of the world outside of North America.

Of course, what is missing from the consultation is the broader issue of building a digitally inclusive society in Canada (referred to in the Senate report) as for example can be found in the policy orientation in Hong Kong with its objective of eliminating through government funded programs the last 20% (quintile) of those currently not digitally enabled.

The recognition that a digitally enabled and effective economy is founded on a digitally enabled and effective society seems somewhere to have been lost. Lost as well seem to be the recognition that the greatest skill in a digital economy as in any other economy or in society overall is the capacity to learn and that learning how to learn, a function of a broader and more humanistic education rather than a "skills oriented" one, is probably a more important and useful preparation for a digital future overall. Equally lost is an understanding that economic innovation is a subset of broader social innovation which in turn comes from a critical yet practical immersion in prevailing cultures and practices.

The response then from a Community Informatics perspective to the questions posed by the Digital Economy Consultation would be as follows:

Capacity to Innovate Using Digital Technologies

The capacity to innovate is a "social" capacity, that is the foundation for innovation comes from a widely dispersed knowledge and experience base coming to grips with important issues including (and particularly in the Canadian context) those having to do with the capacity to live together and be productive in a very diverse and scattered population in an environmentally and climaticly sensitive resource intensive economy. The more widely dispersed the access to, knowledge of, and capacity to use digital technology the greater our capacity as a country to innovate and respond to competitive and other global and local challenges.

Recommendation: That the Government of Canada undertake programs to create the capacity for effective use of broadband based digital technology for the "last quintile" of the Canadian population.

Building a World–Class Digital Infrastructure

In support of the above recommendation a world–class digital infrastructure would need to be put into place. This challenge here is to ensure access to and effective use of the infrastructure by the "last quintile" (20%). Since this "last quintile" remains unconnected largely because this represents the least economically beneficial group in the society from a private sector perspective the requirement here will need to be for a government initiative and funding to bridge the "last quintile" divide.

Recommendation: That the Federal Government of Canada commit to ensuring through private and public sector partnerships and direct funding and ownership if necessary, that the advantages of participation in a Digital Society and Economy be extended to the "last quintile".

Growing the Information and Communications Technology Industry

The objective of "growing the ICT" industry is in fact a goal to increase the requirements for ICT applications, systems and services in the Canadian economy. Since much of the current requirement is already satisfied, growth in the demand and the industry to respond will to a considerable degree come from the "last quintile" of non–users who are currently not being served.

Recommendation: That the Federal Government in its funding and overall programming strategy recognize the significance of the "last quintile" for the Canadian ICT industry and put resources and programme supports in place to ensure resources for demand from and appropriate supply to the "last quintile" sector of the overall market for ICT goods and services.

Digital Media: Creating Canada's Digital Content Advantage

Canada's greatest strength as an originator and creator of digital (and other) content is its diversity and history in responding to a range of physical, climatic and social challenges. This knowledge, talent and capacity is found in Canada's communities, small and large; digital and ethnic; linguistic and experimental; urban, rural and remote. A policy of ensuring technology and financial support to the range of communities within Canada is the surest method of enabling a "content advantage" for our digital productions.

Recommendation: That the Federal Government provide a range of technology and other programmatic supports for the range of communities within Canada and particularly to facilitate the expression of the range of interests and activities within these communities in both digital and non–digital form.

Building Digital Skills for Tomorrow.

Whether "Digital Skills" are in fact, the way for an advanced economy to proceed given the extremely rapid pace of change and volatility in the technology landscape, where the more specific the skills the more likely that they are to become obsolete, is a significant open question. In fact, most digital employers prefer to train their own employees on their own systems which gives them an opportunity to introduce employees into local corporate cultures and proprietary systems and local corporate knowledge and practices.

Recommendation: That the Government of Canada focus on the development of a broad base of digital literacy in the overall economy and society (and educational system) as the basis for "building digital skills for tomorrow" and that there is an associated commitment to ensure the broadest base of social inclusion with respect to this educational priority and particularly focusing on the requirements of the inclusion of the "last quintile".

Suggested URL: Gurstein's Community Informatics Blog