Why we need a DOT EVERYONE (3)

In my previous posting, I provided a link to the full text of the Richard Dimbleby Lecture given this week by Martha Lane Fox. If you don’t have time to read the speech. you can read a summary of her views in this column in today’s “Guardian” newspaper.

She begins her piece:

“Britain could be brilliant at digital, but we’ve been too slow, too incremental – in skills, in infrastructure, in public services. We need to be bolder. We need a new national institution to lead an ambitious charge – to make us the most digital nation on the planet.”

She highlights the problem of digital skills:

“There is a crisis in skills and the understanding of the digital world’s power and potential, but it is not limited to the corridors of Whitehall or the boardrooms of the City. It’s also the case in some of our most disadvantaged communities. We must ensure that the 10 million adults who can’t enjoy the benefits of being online because they lack basic digital skills no longer miss out.”

The article concludes:

“I have started a petition calling for the next prime minister to start building this idea. Please sign it. Britain invented the BBC and the NHS. Let’s not have a poverty of ambition in this new century: we can, and should, be inventing the definitive public institution for our digital age. Let’s encourage the winner of the next election to focus on making Britain the most digitally powered up country on the planet.”

Want to sign the petition (I have)? You’ll find it here.


 




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