Translator: Ilze Garda Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
Digital inequality has been an area of interest to me
probably because of the environment that I grew up in.
My dad worked, as what I can only describe as a self-employed professional hacker.
He used to be able to be employed by clients
to fix, rebuild, or repurpose, whatever a client asked for.
From that, we found that we grew up in a "Wallace and Gromit" style house;
nothing in our house was ever really "broken",
just "repurposed" in another way.
It's the kind of place
you can imagine a light-switch being part of a recycled toaster.
Me and my siblings
often found ourselves ahead of the curve when it came to digital skills in school.
But in my area of youth work, I've come across a lot of young people
that have been really affected by digital inequality,
and seen the adverse effects of digital implication.
Digital inequality is how we refer to the social and economic inequality
in regards to access to, use of, or impact of, digital technologies.
One way we can look at this issue is to imagine a road with many toll gates.
At the end of that road is being digitally literate.
A tollgate is a barrier that stops people from moving forward,
and things like access to technology, or the ability to use technology
stops people early on in this toll gate.
Those people who have been stuck early on
are now falling further and further behind those who are at the front.
Every time the power of the web increases,
and it's possible to do more things online,
the gap between those who are digitally literate,
and those who aren't, widens.
These new forms of inequalities
can, of course, combine with existing inequalities
and do something worse by creating them onto a digital setting as well.
As a a nation
renowned for being at the forefront of technological development,
in the city where the founder of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, was born,
what possible digital inequality could we have?
Well, it's reckoned that about 19.2 million households
are now hooked up to the web.
This is a good thing, that's always rising.
But only 26% of those on the lowest incomes.
And in the same breath,
they reckon that about 16 million people in this country lack basic online skills.
I saw this brilliant Google ad the other day, and it says,
"Knowledge is not always within reach,"
and it's got the "not" crossed out.
That might be true if you've always got the Google app.
But to have the Google app, you have to have access to the Internet.
You have to have a smartphone to be able to use it.
And also the education about how a smartphone works.
So, knowledge is always within reach, if you have access to all those things.
It might be for everyone,
but that doesn't mean everyone has the opportunity to use it.
I was at a talk where Lord Chris Holmes
said something that struck a chord with me, which is,
"How do we psychologically prepare a generation
to take their place in the digital economy?"
And that really got me thinking.
The principle of changing our beliefs based on what's happening in the world
is nothing new;
the world goes through this change all the time.
Technology has always driven a shift in change of beliefs and perceptions.
So, let's rewind to the pre-industrialised era, where about 80% of jobs
were all industrialised-based, and they were agricultural.
And involved a lot of hard work to be able to move forward.
In these progressions, they were very labour-intensive
and it would take many years to become established at what you were doing.
But once you did, you would have a career for life.
The process of product development was long and arduous
and these things took lots of time to be able to create.
Until factories came along.
This brought about the growth of industrialisation.
There are many dark sides to this growth,
like long working hours, and poor social conditions when working.
Not good things, we don't like those.
But, there were a lot of social gains as well.
The well-being of people increased.
The price of products decreased, resulting in an enhanced quality of living.
It produced new jobs, and, for a short while, a rise in the employment rate.
But, in my opinion, the con of the industrialised revolution
is happening again in the digital revolution.
As technology takes the place of humans in the workplace,
it results in an unemployment rate
rising for those who lack competencies and skills.
I'm not a luddite by any stretch of the imagination
- you'll probably find that out later on -
I don't think the development of technology is a bad thing, per se.
But it does change the shape of the economy,
and it does cause disruption.
Disruption isn't the goal; change is the goal.
Disruption is often just a by-product of change.
We need to start to think about the human implications of this change.
To see the extent of "de-skilling",
one only needs to go to a supermarket and look at the self-service checkout,
or the automatisation of blue-collar worker jobs
through things like 3D printing.
Or, in the not too distant future, self-driving cars.
For someone who can't drive, I'm really looking forward to that one.
These are just a few ways we can see technology eroding the human element
needed to operate machinery.
And these skills and trades are all in the process
of having production slowly moved away from people
and slowly beginning to change the shape of the job market as they do it.
If we can visualise the job market in the industrialised era,
it would look something like this chest of drawers kind of shape.
You'd have low-paid, you'd have high-paid, and you'd have your middle-paid.
The middle section would contain jobs like book-keeping, clerical work,
and these would provide typically middle-class pay.
But, this is the section in the information age
that has become increasingly automated.
And it creates a shape that looks more like an eye-shape,
where the middle-class paying jobs are beginning to
move into the lower-class jobs,
which are things like restaurant workers, health home aides.
Customer-service facing roles, which are quite difficult to automate.
It's expected that actually around 35% of jobs that we currently know
are going to be automated within the next 20 years.
Economic theory and government policy will have to be rethought
if technology is, indeed, destroying jobs faster than it is creating new ones.
This is where we need to evaluate what kind of future we are are building.
as the digital economy might look very different
to any model that we currently know.
If that is the case, it's dangerous to the development of a generation
to be imparting values like,
"A high standard of living is purely the result of intelligence and hard work",
when that's not necessarily true, and, debatable if it ever was.
I would like to stress the value of digital skills,
and their importance in the job market.
According to a study by Telefonica at the end of 2013,
it's estimated that we are going to need
three quarters million digitally skilled workers by 2017.
For not being able to make that, it will cost the UK economy
Also, 27% of all job growth in London
is generated by the digital and tech sector.
I believe as we prepare young people for the digital economy,
we need to have a far more humanistic approach.
Growing up surrounded by technology,
my dad would spend a lot of time teaching me how to problem-solve.
Basically, to be able to find answers for myself.
My mother, on the other hand, was very spiritual.
She used to say a lot of things about the fair treatment of people.
When I was fifteen, I already had the rug pulled out from under my feet.
I began to have tonic-clonic seizures,
sometimes up to several times a day, multiple times a week.
Had a huge impact on my education.
I developed a real pick-and-mix of mental health issues
problems such as anxiety, depressive states, post-traumatic stress,
often resulting in panic attacks.
My self esteem was destroyed,
and I felt like my identity was robbed from me, because I couldn't identify
how I was going to take my place in the world.
I started to display challenging behaviour at school.
I was really struggling to retain information in class.
So, I used some of my technical savvy to try and compensate.
But often, my efforts were a little bit misguided.
I'd do things like break into the teacher's laptop
to download the answers to tests,
I'd create short executable files on memory stick
and disguise them as my homework, and then I'd stick them into the computer
and try to convince my teacher that they accidentally deleted my homework
when the computer crashed.
When all else failed, "Emergency Plan A", was, I hack the school network,
and gave remote access to the whole sixth form
so they could control all the computers around school.
That meant they were opening inappropriate web links
on everyone's computers, while they were trying to do the lesson.
I put a lot of effort into my self-preservation at the time.
Eventually, the extent of my illness really caught up with me.
I was not in a position where I could keep up appearances for anyone.
After finding out the extent of my exploits, one of my teachers told me
that with my attitude, I would never amount to anything.
I dropped out of school with no qualifications to my name.
After three years of frequent fits and seizures,
I was eventually in a position that I was able to stabilise.
I spent a lot of evenings then teaching myself
what I missed out on in school,
and was able to secure a job at the local cinema.
But after being there for a few years,
I wanted to try and explore employment avenues.
It was difficult for someone with no qualifications or experience
to break into the job market.
Especially in an area that I found meaningful.
It was during this time that I came across the Prince's Trust Programme.
The Prince's Trust are a charity that support young people,
who have been disadvantaged,
into employment, education, and training.
The Programme helped me immensely with my self-confidence and self-esteem,
beyond anything that I could possibly comprehend.
But most importantly, it helped me to showcase my digital skills to employers
Since my seizures have stopped, I've worked on lots of projects.
A few of note include:
giving written and verbal evidence in select committees,
researcher for an independent film,
I worked on the digital designs of an ITV documentary,
and I worked with UK Space Agency on a project for a Mars rover.
I currently work for the Prince's Trust on the Get Started Programme,
where I support other young people
who are in a similar position to the one I was in,
in the same way that I was supported.
Among other factors, having a high level of digital literacy
and a knack for problem-solving
gave me the opportunity to overcome my disadvantage
and break into the job market.
It's what we like to envision technology doing;
enabling a generation using technology as an equaliser
to get the opportunities that they wouldn't have had otherwise.
But, having worked in the youth sector,
I've gained a lot of exposure to those who are adversely affected
by digital inequality.
Digital inequality, in many senses,
stems from the fact that our economic system hasn't kept up
with our technological capabilities.
In my opinion, I think we've negated the human cost
of aggressive digital expansion in this country.
Predominantly, because we are trying to impart industrialised social values
on a generation growing up, in the digital era.
The problem is, we don't know what the future is going to look like.
We can't predict the kind of jobs that are going to be available.
We don't know the kind of economy that's going to shape our society.
But what we fundamentally do know,
is part of the human experience is that we are always
going to encounter challenges.
Everyone in this room, I'm sure at some point,
has encountered a challenge.
I'd be very surprised if you hadn't.
What we need to know is that these challenges require resilience
to be able to overcome them.
We know that the ability to solve problems
is essential in developing both coping mechanisms for mental health,
and also for being able to gain digital skills.
We know young people are experiencing higher levels of unemployment,
higher levels of mental health issues,
increasing dissatisfaction with their own well-being,
problems integrating with society,
and also, becoming more disengaged as they try to get into the economy.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission published a paper this October
that said that young people have experienced
the biggest slide in income and employment,
and face higher barriers than five years ago.
In the 2015 Prince's Trust Youth Index,
36% of young people said they feel inadequate on a daily basis.
That rose to over 53% of those who weren't in employment, education, and training,
and leaped again to 70% if that had been the case for over six months.
I think they're really shocking statistics when you think about young people
in this country, at the moment; 70% of those
not in employment, education, or training, feeling inadequate.
This year, young people scored the lowest in the Index's seven year history,
when it came to things like emotional and physical well-being of themselves.
We need to start looking at how to drive a shift
in principles and beliefs for the digital revolution.
We need to prepare young people
to take their place in the digital economy.
And here's where I suggest we start:
In a day and age where we have a greater understanding of the human mind
than ever before,
the most valuable asset that we can pass on is coping mechanisms
to be able to deal with challenges in this period of digital disruption.
What is at the heart of developing digital skills,
is the ability to problem-solve.
What I want to see is more compassion and understanding
for those who need support.
Why can't we adopt the mindset
that a high standard of living is not the result
of an individual's hard work and intelligence,
but that of a group, a contribution of everyone?
Because, ultimately, we are all interconnected.
There is a brilliant African proverb:
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
At the end of the day, without somebody giving us a helping hand,
where would any of us be?
I definitely wouldn't be standing here
if it wasn't for the compassion and consideration of others.
Personally, I don't think anyone can say they made it alone.
We are interdependent beings, in an interdependent society,
and that needs to be reflected
in the values we are imparting to a generation.
We must help everyone to not feel isolated in a digital world.
No matter the revolution,
the most valuable resource has been, and always will be,
that of human potential.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)