Nethui

More musings from #nethui

Nethui is drawing to a close now, and as always it’s been a mixed bag of talks and awesomeness all rolled into one! Meeting all the people I talk to online in real life is always cool (I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “ohh you’re vivster81”) and there is also the added buzziness of being in the same room as people who can actually change things. Being able to take it from “wouldn’t it be great if…” to “let’s talk about that next week” is where it’s at!

I also love the fact that there are educators, policy makers, politicians, tech people all in the same space. you’ve got people doing things with kids and you’ve got people doing things with seniors and they are ALL HERE!

So if you have been following me on twitter and wondered why I upped my tweet ratio to MILLIONS of tweets and why they were all labelled #nethui then please, consider coming next year, what nethui needs most is the multiple and diverse voices! We all know how to talk to our own tribes, it’s when you are heard by someone else that real change happens.

What the #digitaldivide means

I’m at #nethui (if you couldn’t guess from my crazy-ass twitter stream today) and Di Daniels from Computers in Homes just spoke at the Jump Start session. Every year I come here and when Computers in Homes gets up there, it is a stark reminder of my privilege.

I’ve been involved with OMG Tech for a while now (since its inception actually!) and the entire aim of what we are doing, is bringing future tech to the kids that can’t access it normally… but the kids that Di helps are even further from that. They aren’t just kids who hasn’t played with 3D Printers or robots, they are kids who have no access to the internet and can’t email their homework to their teacher!

It’s so hard, even the World Internet Project admits, that they can’t research who needs the internet the most, those people don’t have internet or phone lines, how do you even ask them?

So, I ask you, dear reader, how do we fix this digital divide? We all agree that we need to, we just don’t know how.