Net gain for social capital

Consider the potential of digital technology to overcome disability. Arrange a gathering of people in London, with different abilities, talents and experience. Set them sharing ideas in pursuit of inspiration, and pooling thoughts to give impetus to concrete projects. It was called "e-nabled". It was an early instance of the new Vitamin-e network going into action - and spawning a follow-up seminar to take things forward.

The Vitamin-e project is run by Forum for the Future, the think-tank Demos and web design company Ethical Media. It is all about working out a new, more sustainable agenda for digital technology - in the words of Rachel Jupp of Demos, "reinventing the internet, post the dot-com bubble, with social and environmental goals at its heart." The November 2001 launch involved 150 people from large ICT companies, small start-ups, local and national government, think-tanks and NGOs, as well as social and environmental entrepreneurs. The writer, musician and activist Pat Kane characterised them as "people who want to use their skills and capacity to make social capital - not just financial capital".

Vitamin-e plans a meeting every two months, where a panel of experts outline challenges that need to be tackled, and people already running relevant projects share their experience of what works and what doesn't. At a follow-up seminar, the Vitamin-e co-ordinators will work with people who feel they definitely have something to offer, helping them to create and take forward a project proposal.

Vitamin-e; www.vitamin-e.net

Choice quotes from the e-nabled meeting:

 

Joe Rajko, chairman of Youreable.com:
"The internet could have been designed specifically for people with disabilities. Never before has something been so right for someone. It creates a level playing field and offers access to the global community."

Mike Duxbury, head of Vodaphone’s work on disability:
"Let's not be the shoe shop for people who only take a size 8, but for all people."

Julie Howell, RNIB, on the problem of websites coded with insufficient care for the requirements of speech synthesis software:
"When coding is bad the web falls silent…. Who makes inaccessible activities that excludes large groups of people? We do. Who will be the socially excluded of this century if we don't think about these issues now? We will."

Susie Cornell, a long-term MS sufferer, now a leading complementary therapist helping others with MS reclaim their independence:
"I want an introduction into this technology institution that I don't belong to at the moment. I need the right people to talk to me tonight and give me a way forward."

Pablo Picasso (attrib.):
"Computers are useless, they only give us answers."

5 April 2002