Supporting digital Inclusion in Cornwall
For National Inclusion Week we’re celebrating how organisations and businesses from across Cornwall are working with Smartline to promote digital inclusion.
National Inclusion Week celebrates inclusivity in everyday life. Organisations come together to share ideas, solutions and challenges, and look at ways that technology can help to improve inclusivity in the workplace, and by extension, the community.
Emma Seymour and James Rowberry lead our knowledge exchange team, engaging with hundreds of organisations and businesses across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. We asked them to share just a few examples of how projects are harnessing technology to support digital inclusion.
An accessible app: Now & Then
Here is a snapshot of Now & Then’s mobile app that triggers via GPS or Bluetooth when near historical places of interest.
Now & Then is a mobile app that provides tailored guided tours. Designed by Mike Robinson from Camborne, the app aims to bring locations and their history to life in an easily accessible and engaging way.
Emma Seymour, Smartline’s Knowledge Exchange Officer says: “We’ve worked with Mike to make the app suitable for accessible content that can be downloaded by visually impaired users and people with reading difficulties.”
“Together, we’re working with end users and local museums to come up with a fantastic new resource that brings places to life. Supporting Mike with the funding to make sure the Now & Then app will hopefully set a standard and expectation for other apps to do the same, increasing accessibility, inclusiveness and independence.”
Digital health hub: Cornwall Neighbourhoods for Change (CN4C)
All Saints Church Community Centre in Camborne is a great example of a community hub in action, helping to create an IT centre for local residents.
CN4C are working with the NHS to provide digital hubs. In response to the pandemic, these physical spaces provide access to digital health care for people without the internet, technology or confidence.
Emma said “It was important that the local community were part of the design process to ensure the idea would work and support people’s needs. We also ran focus groups to provide useful insights about acceptability, feasibility and factors which could influence the hub.”
“It's been fantastic to be able to involve local people, the users, in this collaborative research project. The valuable feedback is enabling CN4C to address barriers to use and improve their Digital Health Hub to encourage those who are most digitally excluded to engage."
Inclusive adventures: Sonic Kayaks
Read our full case study about sonic kayaking.
Smartline brought together Then Try This and Access Lizard Adventure to bring adventure to a previously excluded community, while also collecting important pollution data for research.
James Rowberry, Smartline’s Knowledge Exchange Officer, said: “These two organisations began working together on the Sonic Kayak project with the goal of using technology to make kayaking accessible to people who are visually impaired. It has been such an inspiring project!”
“We worked with people from the visually impaired community through iSight Cornwall, who asked for an immersive and independent experience. We then worked with CNC Craft to produce a touch-sensitive 3D map, while local artists added sounds and audio descriptions. A great example of Cornish businesses coming together to support digital inclusion.”
Can we help your community to connect?
These are only three examples of the innovative enterprises we are supporting. If you are a small and medium enterprise in Cornwall or the Isles of Scilly, and would like support with your digital inclusion project, get in touch we’d love to hear from you!