CASE STUDY: Tech Time on tour

Digital Wigan sits within Wigan Council’s digital services team and works to overcome the three main pillars of digital exclusion – lack of digital skills, access to a device and access to connectivity. This is achieved through delivery of three digital inclusion services called TechMates, Tablet Lending Library and National Databank.

In 2022 Wigan Council were part of GMCA Digital’s Social Housing Pilot, partnered with Talk Talk/Freedom Fibre and worked to develop a digital inclusion support structure that would benefit local residents in Higher Folds social housing. The aim was to build on the pilot and create a sustainable digital inclusion offer within the community.

A survey of residents was taken to establish their current digital footprints as well as highlight their barriers and needs when it comes to digital inclusion. A total of 86 residents were surveyed, with key themes showing 25% of them not engaging with digital at all – citing their preference to engage with people face to face. Issues around staying safe online and the cost of decent broadband are often mentioned as a cause of this. Taking the results of the survey into consideration, and after in-person consultation with attendees of the Higher Folds Community Centre, Wigan Council's Digital team developed a Digitober event programme called Tech Time and created Tech Time on tour.

Tech Time aims to create opportunities for local families to be inspired by the wonder digital can bring and to learn the breadth of services available to them locally, which will combat the digital barriers they face. In 2024 we built on the pilot and took Tech Time on tour. We maintained a partnership with Freedom Fibre and linked in our Digital Community Partners, Higher Folds Community Centre which sits within the large social housing estate. Tech Time on tour landed at the centre on 13^th April and on the day we had Virtual Reality, Coding, Retro gaming, Digital art, TechMates support, Databank offering and a stall services marketplace. These activities held multiple benefits for residents, such as improving mental, physical and social wellbeing and addressing the concerns raised in the initial pilot survey, which was to engage with digital in face-to-face community settings and having TechMates on hand to advise about online safety.

Partners Freedom Fibre hooked up the community centre prior to the event with free super-fast WIFI as a social value offer - which will directly support local residents and the Higher Folds social housing community. They also dedicated their volunteers to support attendees on the day with activities and advice around connectivity.

Feedback for the event has been overwhelmingly positive, with a 100% satisfaction evaluation score, and one attendee said:

“You gave my son one of the coding micro:bit sets and by nightfall, he'd created a simple but working game. On Sunday, the day before school starts and when he usually gets himself stressed beyond reasoning - he spendt much of the day coding away in high spirits and with some help from the Internet, created a few really impressive games and is very inspired!”

Critical factors that made the Tech Time on-tour event a success, is the collaboration with community and private sector partners to make the support available and possible. Without Higher Folds Community Centre, we wouldn’t have had a base to use to support as many residents as possible, and without Freedom Fibre, the centre wouldn’t have had superfast free broadband installed which not only benefited the event - allowing Virtual Reality and coding activities to take place – but is an accessible hub for residents to use when needing to access free connection.

Other organisations could learn from this, as through teamwork comes maximised outcomes and by all pulling in the same direction, doing whatever we all collectively can, the overall impact is maximised and opportunities for local residents expanded. We now have a base to deliver digital inclusion initiatives long-term, as a hub with its finger on the pulse of the local community.

Learn more about Digital Wigan's Tech Time and the events taking place during Digitober 2024 (external website).

Article Published: 08/10/2024 14:03 PM