Digital inclusion – a boon or a bane? – WS 04 2012
14 June 2012 | 14:00-15:15
Programme overview 2012
People
Key Participants
- Linda Corugedo Steneberg, European Commission
- Kęstutis Juškevičius, Martynas Mazvydas National Library of Lithuania
- Ingeborg Moræus Hanssen, SeniorNett Norway
- Yuliya Morenets, Together against cybercrime
- Ana Cristina Neves, Department Information Society Science and Technology Foundation, Ministry of Education and Science
- Mikael von Otter, IT- and Telecom companies
- Christine Runnegar, Internet Society
Moderator
- Bo R. Svensson, SeniorNet Sweden
Transcript
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>> INGA GRUNDEN: Hello. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. To each and every one of you in this room including the possible, Digital Inclusion – a Boon or a Bane. And I want you all in this room to be as provacative as possible. This is not technical. This is really putting things to the end, why should we pay for the equipment to do the job, have no security and leave all our personal data in some cloud somewhere.
So benefits, pros and cons. And my name is Inga Grunden and I represent SeniorNet Sweden where elderly – each elderly need to know how to get on the IT train. A special welcome to our brave, knowledgeable and distinguished panelists who will introduce themselves one by one. And this is my rock. His name is not pier. His name is Bo and he is our Moderator and we have some great technical people over there to help us out, including a remote Moderator.
Welcome and this is an interactive workshop. So it is definitely audience participation. And now the floor is yours.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. Well, I want to say a very welcome. And I start directly with introducing our panelists to you. And I start with Kestutis Juskevicius and he is a project manager for Libraries for Innovation with the National Library of Lithuania. And so if you would, a few words about you.
>> KESTUTIS JUSKEVICIUS: Thank you. My name is Kestutis Juskevicius. And as you said I am from Lithuania, practically small neighboring country across the Baltic Sea. Sometimes I am coming by sailboat. Not very far. For me digital inclusion – a boon or a bane, such a name is very challenging because five years I was leading the project which was working with digital inclusion, not exclusion. And now you are asking practically, it was useful or not to work five years to do this inclusion. So such words.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. Now we turn over to Ingeborg Moraeus Hanssen and she is board chairperson for SeniorNet Norway where we make a little information for you. You will find the board chairperson of SeniorNet Sweden sitting right here. So we’ve got two board Chairmen from SeniorNet which makes me happy.
>> INGEBORG MORAEUS HANSSEN: I feel welcome. I represent the SeniorNet Norway as you said and for me Internet is a boon and Internet is a global communication and the source of knowledge and democratic membership of today’s society. Since I have been involved in politics all my life, I realised that I wanted to fight the discrimination of people in the third age. So that’s why I am here. I am not the specialist on anything. But I am here on behalf of people in the third age. Because our culture in Norway and everywhere I think do neither respect nor involve in society people in this stadium of life. Modern research has material proof that men and women from 60 to 90 years have a huge potential. We live longer and we are stronger and we are more healthier, more happier, more powerful and have a human spirit. That could be much more useful not only to the very person but, of course, to the whole society to be more civilized and more human.
So the key to make this happen is to learn and involve grown up people in the third age to participate through the Internet rooms of all kind. Can I continue for one minute?
>> BO SVENSSON: Well, let’s do it for this time, yeah.
>> INGEBORG MORAEUS HANSSEN: Okay. I come strongly back.
>> BO SVENSSON: I told you it was a promise. Well, let’s go over to Yuliya Morenets representative for Together Against Cybercrime from France. (Speaking in a non-English language).
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone. I am happy to be here. I represent the organisation Together Against Cybercrime. What we try to do in France and other European countries and more globally we try to develop the ever readiness activities in order to fight against cybercrime. So we have the particular focus on vulnerable groups and working with youth, with social problems, with behavioral problems and mainly raising the question of how to promote cybersecurity culture among vulnerable groups.
Concerning your question I would say it is rather a boon. Why? And I would like to give a concrete example. I was sitting with my grandfather a few weeks ago in the Russian Federation and I was sitting in a cafe in the central of Russia with my laptop and he was amazed that I could find information on himself. And I would like to develop this point afterwards concerning data protection and privacy, and we were able to find videos that he is in love with that he wanted to share with me. So I think it was a boon. And I think it is great also to fight against solitude in a way. And actually for him it would be great just to speak with me on Skype. So I think it is quite a positive way if we develop strategies in order to make it safer, safer use of the Internet. So thanks very much.
>> BO SVENSSON: Well, Ana Cristina Neves, director of the Department Information Society, Science and Technology Foundational, Ministry of Education and Science in Portugal and then the floor is yours.
>> ANA CRISTINA NEVES: Thank you very much. Well, my point – is it working?
>> BO SVENSSON: It is working. Yeah.
>> ANA CRISTINA NEVES: It works? It works? It works. Yes. Good. Okay. Well, this question, a boon or a bane, well, I would like – you would be very interested to know who says that it is a bane. It will be interesting to have a good discussion about that because for me, of course, it is a boon.
So my point here today would be to defend how the topdown approach is so important for the bottom-up movement towards digital inclusion. My point, my focus would be the need for empowerment, the capacity building, the digital literacy and something that is very, very important. And it was very important in Portugal and it really worked. That is, the network dynamics through the telecentres. So my point would be the importance of the network, the network dynamics, the need of these telecentres’ network that can have different types like we have in Portugal, in municipalities, in welfare institutions, in public libraries, in digital inclusion centres, in digital cities and regions in employment and training centres, in cultural and recreational and sports collectivities. So you see that we arrange every public space that we could have to offer these telecentres approach. And if I have the time and if – and if the debate will run in this direction, I would be glad to say what we did and what we are doing and what can be done at a European level.
>> BO SVENSSON: We are looking forward to that. Well, then we go over to Mikael Von Otter, economic policy expert for IT and telecom companies. And well, it is yours.
>> MIKAEL VON OTTER: Thank you. And thank you for inviting me here. I am not quite sure really specifically what capacity I was invited. I am working with the IT and telecom Association of Sweden which is Almega. If there is not much to use in IT, who would be interested in being digitally included? Happily there are lots of things. But we also think there are much more to be done and that’s part of my job.
The other thing I also do there with is broadband deployment but perhaps we won’t cover that too much. The second reason that I might be here invited that I am also Chairman of the Swedish campaign for digital inclusion DigiDel which might be mentioning a little bit more later, but it is a major campaign with library, study organisations, SeniorNet and other organisations like municipalities and others all included and to a certain extent business which one can comment upon. That might be the two reasons I am here or that I am actually a 66-year-old and also a senior citizen almost. So perhaps I am not the objective for digital inclusion because I have been working with IT for 40 years, but nevertheless I have experience from my own parents and that it is extremely important.
Now why is it important to have this digital inclusion? I think there are specifically four – sorry, three reasons which we try and to put forward in the public debate meeting with policymakers, in parliament and other places. One is the democracy aspect. It is a right for citizens to access to information. In Sweden extremely often in television, in radio, in newspapers you can read more about it on the www something and it is a democratic right to have access to. And from the economic point of view it is important for the person, product person and the cost to use banks if you don’t have Internet. For society there is a lot of savings that you can use Internet instead of traditional means.
And the third reason democracy, third reason is the social aspect. That it opens up the world for people that otherwise might be more isolated and that is also an extremely important issue. So these three areas are the things that we talk about and I will be happy to come back to.
>> BO SVENSSON: Well, Mikael, I think I can add a fourth reason that you are here. You are a very stimulating person to have in a debate and I noticed it before.
>> MIKAEL VON OTTER: That raises some expectations.
>> He couldn’t very well say that himself.
>> BO SVENSSON: Actually I thought it could if it would. I will leave you now and go over to Christine Runnegar. Centre policy advisor, ISOC Geneva.
>> CHRISTINE RUNNEGAR: Okay. So here we go. This will be a challenge, hold the microphone and talk at the same time. Is it on?
>> BO SVENSSON: I think so.
>> CHRISTINE RUNNEGAR: That’s okay. That’s very kind of you but I think I will manage. Good afternoon, everyone and thank you very much to Inga for the invitation to be on this panel and it is great to be here and meet everyone and I hope we get a chance to talk later. Our mission in short term is the Internet for everyone, but let me just say a few things about digital inclusion. So it is both easy and difficult at the same time to talk about digital inclusion because in reality it is not binary but it is a spectrum, and where an individual falls in that spectrum depends on a very large number of interrelated factors.
Now let me give you a few, they are very obvious, affordability, accessibility, location, education, culture, age, experience, abilities, employment, attitudes and perceptions, families and peers and so on. And knowing which of those factors is most influential in a given case is important to understand the challenges of realising a fully integrated society. There are a number of studies that look at this issue and one that you might want to look at OECD’s study on digital divide, micro data analysis. So in a discussion then about whether digital inclusion is a boon or a bane we must be careful not to conflict obstacles to affecting real and digital inclusion with any disadvantages that may arise moving from an offline to an online experience. But equally important while it may be hard to achieve digital inclusion for everyone it is not a reason to give up. And as we move closer and closer to a ubiquitous online society it is important to also remember that perhaps not everyone wants everything online.
If I had more time, which I don’t think I have, I would really like to give you some examples from around the world of locally based community projects that are involved in providing digital inclusion to various different communities.
But I think I might have to wait for that, is that right?
>> BO SVENSSON: Yeah, yeah. You might have a chance later on. Well, thank you. Well, at last Linda Corugedo Steneberg, European Commission and you are welcome.
>> LINDA CORUGEDO STENEBERG: Thank you very much. We will soon be called the digi connect because that’s more – it stands for, of course, new communication Networks, new technologies, et cetera, because Information Society is a bit last decade, not this one. So we are rebranding ourselves as the saying goes. And we hope that this will be better for us in order to communicate what we are really doing because Information Society is a bit vague and a bit fluffy around the edges.
I will be – when I get the floor again talking a little bit about the inclusion, also about a new project we have which are the digital champions in Member States. Encausto is one of these but I will explain about that concept and why we are doing it, but it has a lot to do with digital inclusion. We will also be coming with a proposal on web accessibility later on this year. So we are being very active in this field actually but with that thank you very much.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. Now the panel is worth for you, for two things because good presentations and interesting and kept the time exact.
(Applause.)
>> BO SVENSSON: Well, now we are going over to a little thing I would like to say before we start. As you have seen all around there who sets the rules for the Internet. And then we could hear from the session before should they actually add new rules or could listen to the young people out there, you know, those digital natives who say – who are saying no, no, no, it is all in education and training. We are – digital immigrants may ask in a way is it really the truth. I would like before we start now to turn around a little bit in the panel and have a look at the image behind you and are you there, too. On the left on that very – we have the public sector, the private sector, the non-profit sector. On the right-hand we have the digital immigrants as you can see there and these are called end users and most of the discussion as up to now been should – how should we get away with broadband technical training and computers and the problem is around the middle, who is responsible for what’s happening here. Who is trustworthy for the end users? Who is liable, economic security net and overall who pays and who profits on this?
Because there we think are the real problem in the future in a way because it is very tempting, for example, for a bank to say we give you the Internet and you can see that at home and pay and then they are taking down our person and taking down their service and they save a lot of money and then probably rise what it costs to use the Internet. And then you say and who pays, who profits. That’s a little bit of background. Now I lean toward free for all the audience and for the panel in this.
You are welcome.
>> You were asking who is responsible for the end users. My answer is the end users themselves. And I was asking who is saying that this is a bane. It is the old people who says it is a bane because, of course, they are scared; they are frightened because so quick and drama people want to have free thoughts before they start. And so I think that the – my point of view people in the third age have responsibility not only to learn these new skills for themselves to manage or communication with and in the society not only to send photos of grandchildren, to buy tickets to fly, restaurants and for bank business and to find your heritage. Respect and involvement with one to grown up people on themselves take part in. Together with the strong young youth people and that will bring more demographic, more hardening also in this prospect that we are discussing here. So the grown-up has to take responsibility themselves, like the SeniorNet organisation or to schools, banks, libraries, everywhere. But they have to go themselves.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. Then it is Mikael and then it is here and then it is there and then it is there. I will try to get them all. All right.
>> MIKAEL VON OTTER: Well, I agree with what you said, to a certain extent. You couldn’t put the question the way you did, who is responsible because I think that all parts are responsible to a certain extent. The Internet is covering the entire society, end users, companies, public sector and everyone has a certain part to play there. Legislatures, security, schools and whatever. So I mean it is not a question of who is responsible but actually rather the other way around. Today who is not taking the responsibility that that part should take today. And I do think there are some comments one could put but may come back, that there are certain things that some sectors are not taking the responsibility for which they should. But to the question you put, I think all for the private, the public, non-profit end users are all responsible together.
>> I actually agree very much with what you just said because I am personally a believer in that we should take our own responsibility and that the field is rather large for doing that. And I do hear the young people who Twittered furiously when my boss Neelie said what she said. However in a way to put it a bit more in perspective these are often highly educated people who belong to a certain category. And I am not sure that they can speak for all young people and I am pretty sure that they cannot speak for young children. And as Neelie says I am a liberal but I still think in this field we need to have some legislation. It is like you would say oh, smoking is very dangerous but we will not introduce any legislation anyway. We have done that and for a reason and there are some pretty shady elements out there who are and Neelie was referring to a case that blew in the UK media most of us haven’t seen that is quite shocking but also goes to show that if we just let everyone flow and go with the flow, which sounds really mellow and nice and cool, we might end up with some serious problems on our hands.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. We have there.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: At the beginning of this workshop I was asked to be provocative, end users should be responsible. I would like to move on the security and data protection area. I was still staying with my grandfather a few months ago in the Russian Federation. He is not an internet or ICT user at all. He was saying to me I don’t know how to do this. I was sitting with my computer and I said just to have fun I will Google you to see what is going on, if I can find you on the Internet and he was saying to me no, I am not an Internet user and it is impossible for you to find anything on me. He was surprised I found ten pages on him and what I found was his address as well and I found his income. The income that he – the retirement that he receives every month. I would like to raise the question who is responsible for this. Is it the end user? He is not an Internet user at all. He has no computer at his home. So it is a question I would like to launch the discussion if you agree as well.
>> BO SVENSSON: I have two left in the panel and then two in the audience. So I will finish with the panel first in the question. And it – I think there was – yeah?
>> Might need a clarification here. There is a piece of paper in the centre between the two. Actually who is responsible for the content on the Internet. That’s the Internet. The old-fashioned piece of paper. Who is trustworthy on the Internet: Who is liable for the information on the Internet and how it is used if I put out some personal data, for example. And who pays and who profits. Thank you.
>> Okay. I think that this question or this powerpoint, this problem, I think that we have two things here totally different. One is Internet Governance. The second one is Digital Literacy. So Internet Governance it deals with this first part. It deals with who profits, who doesn’t profit, how we should do things in a way that all gain, I think that’s the problem with these multistakeholderism approach. We are trying to find the right balance. And I am from the Government, the Governmental side but I do defend this multistakeholder approach 100% because I think that’s the only way that we can achieve something in this very, very complex issue. So I separate the things, the two things.
Here is something that we have to work very hard and that we are working very hard is Internet Governance and we have very good discussion between us, Government, Civil Society, private sector and technical community and academy. Here it is my point where the topdown approach can be very important for the bottom-up. Again the importance of the telecentres. It is a very good experience where we had these immigrants, where we have all the people. Where we have the child working on a daily basis with the computer and they are learning how to fulfill something for the Government. They are part of campaigns. They are part of Internet safety awareness sessions. So they even receive basic ICT training, a diploma. So the end user maybe it doesn’t know, he or she doesn’t know, aware that it needs to be empowered. Sometimes he knows and he goes to the – to, for instance, the telecentre or a school or whatever. Sometimes it doesn’t know. So it is our job, I think it is the Government’s job to help this end user to go through a way and to arrange these kind of places like the telecentres where he can freely on a free basis, so he doesn’t pay anything and he receives some capacity building.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you for a very interesting report and then we have you here and you down there and then you right there. Oh, one more. First you.
>> KESTUTIS JUSKEVICIUS: The answer to your questions, if you remember Internet ICTs, tool of empowerment. Other tools, system and other things and responsible for ever Actor who participates in this system. For example, if you are going by train, who is responsible for your lives, safety life? You, of course. Don’t jump. Then the train going and not stopping. The train must be developed in such a way that you must be safe and so on and so on and so on. The system is responsible for the – it is the same in Internet system and who pays? End user pays. If end user will not pay, then the form of access, the system will not be sustained. It will not. So from my taxes Government uses for investment. Our business also use your Government money to develop more powerful.
>> Thank you. I would like to change the focus a little and let me tell you what I would represent and my name is Bill Ranken and I am engaged in the cluster in the Gothenburg region. And the reason I would like to change the focus is that I see a tendency that the digital inclusion is very much about not knowing how to operate a computer, if you are old like I am. I think this is becoming a smaller and smaller problem for obvious reasons. The major problem digital divide in online and offline. Sweden is very well off as you probably know. We have a very high coverage of Internet. But this means that the few people who are not connected they are in really bad shape and it tends to be from the Government that says that the market will fix this. It is the market whose responsibility it is to build out the infrastructure. You just said that the Government pays for the infrastructure. And I think that should be the utmost responsibility to make sure that everyone is included. And this means, of course, that if we have a few percent that are not included, these are also young people, children who in the future are more and more dependent on being connected to be able to do their schoolwork, to be able to get all the information. They may be as clever as anybody in handling a computer, but if they can’t connect they don’t have access to the content and all the rest. So please make sure that the society connects everyone and then I think a lot of these problems will be solved by themselves. Thank you.
>> BO SVENSSON: You are saying that you are looking at who is responsible today having a possibility to connect. Let me go to the panel. Anyone wants to say something on that?
>> MIKAEL VON OTTER: I would. Just a comment on that. I agree that, of course, the – having infrastructure is extremely important. But let’s face it in Sweden 1.3 million people 16 years and older, 16 years and older are not using the Internet at all or very seldom. 1.3 million which is actually not more than some 50%. A lot of these 1.3 million do have infrastructure. So it is also to a very large extent a problem of not knowing how to use, not for – not being able to afford it and not understanding the possibilities that it is – that Internet is of usage to you. It is not either/or but both.
>> BO SVENSSON: Just a moment. We have this lady first and then you there and there.
>> CHRISTINE RUNNEGAR: Thank you. We have covered so many topics already. I agree with my colleagues up here that it is a shared responsibility. And then also to the gentleman’s point public access and support for public access to the Internet is also important. And to take the point about the topdown approach, if you don’t mind I will turn it on its head a little bit and say yes, it is important that all stakeholders including government support the development of public access whether it is through telecentres or whatever, but let me give an example of a community based project to do that. This one is taken from Ethiopia. It was a project that was granted an award from our community awards. It is an Internet cafe. It is to launch an Internet cafe and media centre for visually impaired and the cafe is going to be converting numeric text in to numeric Braille to integrate the community. I can’t leave your banking example alone. You gave only one example of the banking industry. We must not forget there were also people living in remote areas where there was no banking office or central point. And so the Internet has given those people an opportunity to do their banking without having to drive long distances. And this isn’t really an Internet example but it is one would say a digital example. If we would look in Africa, use of mobile telephone, it has enabled many Africans who would not be able to get a bank account, and it has enabled them to get micro finance and make micro payments.
>> LINDA CORUGEDO STENEBERG: Can I make one point on? Our digital champion in Romania has started a whole network of libraries in Romania and they help farmers fill in their forms. But their story behind this is quite interesting, that saved these farmers 34,000 hours in filling in paper forms and going back and forth to the capital city from quite far away because it is a rather big country in a geographical sense as well. And then while they were at it because these librarians have been trained by the foundation that is financing this in Romania they took it further because there were quite a few that have immigrated to Portugal and they left their children with grandparents and they were worrying that the loss of contact to the parents could create problems for the future in the problem. They put up a Skype so the children could come and talk to their parents in Spain, for instance. So this is, you know, a really concrete what can be done. I wanted to share this example with you.
>> I was going to look at the original title of the panel session which was Digital Inclusion – a boon or a bane. Do I need to speak closer?
>> BO SVENSSON: Yes.
>> I was going to refer to the image in of the title of the session. I think that digital inclusion – I am not saying that I think that digital inclusion would be a bane. 30% of Europeans are not using the Internet. If you brought that 30% online in one sense you are creating a solution in boosting a single market and access to services and products and you are simultaneously creating a greater vulnerability in terms of number of people who can fall victim to scams and e-mails from Nigeria and a gentleman asking for your e-mail for safekeeping. I think that Internet safety and digital inclusion need to go hand in hand and not separately.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: I would like to jump to a number of points and the gentleman who was speaking about the no need defense or the very important need of the Internet literacy among the developed – sorry, of the Internet literacy among seniors, I think if we take an example, Eastern European countries, I think the situation is completely different. I don’t have statistics here. They do have the connection and broadband but the problem is Internet literacy. How many people in Eastern European countries use the Internet from the target group of seniors. So will be interesting. And as we were talking about cybersecurity and security set for users of Internet, I would like to support what Ana was saying concerning the empowerment of users and what we think the specific approach, the specific capacity building tools and specific approach should be developed for seniors because they are obviously more fragile. And, for example, if we take an example of e-commerce online and the medicines online, if we take once again Western or Eastern European countries when we can buy medicines online it is a question of trust. Seniors quite often they trust people on and offline. We have a large number offline by selling pills by telephone. What can it be online? You can imagine. A specific approach should be taken to empower seniors with safe and responsible use of Internet.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. It is your chance.
>> My name is Illian. And I am a city librarian of Stockholm and part of the National Association of Library Associations. I think the connected society also question of citizenship, that you have a whole or a society that breaks down. We want to kind of associate with everyone involved and part of the society. Therefore the divide in societies is very often the same as the digital divide because it is the same language, job seeking, youth, age, et cetera, et cetera, and all the things that you mentioned. Therefore, of course, we have to use the infrastructure that you have. In many, many countries there are a network of libraries and when libraries decide to move from the focus of collection to the focus of connection. There you have the tool for working with the digital divide. I think in – the good thing about libraries is that they are on site. Not only digital or they are on site. They are personal and people and they are independent and reliable and trustworthy. And you can have a personal connection where you actually start with a human being and then go up out of cyberspace and there I will just say that how happy I am working together with senior surf, the SeniorNet in Sweden to reach out to all people who need the libraries and the section the most.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. You are changing eyes with the senior. Do you want to say something to comment?
>> KESTUTIS JUSKEVICIUS: I feel there are two, digitally native and elderly people. Digital divide is much more wide and, for example, most validations. Digitally divided are mostly elderly and a new generation will come. And situation will change. And then I am saying to them that according to our statistics more than almost half of digital divide persons are in the age between 55 and 65. And it is more a social problem of that digital divide. It is very important. And then yes, speaking about how to – it is not only training. Most of them say that they are not interested. And investigation in ICT in short that most important factors which attract influence, the decision to use or not to use, it is two factors. Uselessness and easy to use. And somebody must prove to these people that it is easy to – it is easy to use. And it is useful in everyday life. In usual marketing campaigns it does not work. That’s the need information Moderator. And I believe that public training is useful as this information mediator because as you said traditional relations with communities and also new services it would combine with traditional services, and what is most important is that a good trained, how to say, adaptive personality. This thing, the depend – I would like to write and stand and give a reward not from your delegation but from our Committee and say if you want simpler training with more simple terms and so on, not so normal and divide as, for example, citizen programme and so on. It is to – that’s why it is done.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you.
>> INGEBORG MORAEUS HANSSEN: Libraries are invested and therefore as well we – a new way of being involved in this universe and should be, of course, in libraries. And the SeniorNet are working hard to get those roots. But could be age has to be led in to temptation to take part. And as I said – by orders from the Government or police or whatever. They have to go like in this organisation to be together to do their own things, to call the other ones and to tell us – all makes sense. So who is responsible. Of course, I am proud of being innovation and I am a little bit ashamed as well. We have a very rich country. And so much here for me to learn about other countries and – they have other problems than we have back home. Of course, I am a fighter on this. I want those grown-up people to be more responsible. To take part, to be together as I said with the youngsters. Of course, that’s the only way to have the civilized in human society is that both the youngsters and experienced people should be together about these wonderful new chapters.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, you first. Yeah, you first.
>> ANA CRISTINA NEVES: I think it is about the time to talk a little bit more about of what I want. It is the network dynamics because of the thing of the libraries. It is not only the library because it depends on the country or even on the city or on the community. It really depends. You can use libraries. You can use a cultural centre. You can use a digital – an employment centre. You can use any community centre to make people aware of this digital, this new – this new digital era. I just wanted to tell you what this network dynamics can provide, can provide in these centres. So it can provide knowledge and give access to valuable services instead of simple Internet access. I think it is something that we are talking here. We are not talking only about Internet access. We are talking about giving access to valuable services. It facilitates access to government service and empowers services and it shows that ICT training is the digital literacy engine. It uses just bonds to focus on community needs. I mean senior training and activities for children’s holidays, job search activities and it supports to people with special needs with specific equipment. So it is a very wide spectrum of activities and it is very interesting to have this kind of Networks. So again my point is really to work hard on this network dynamics and this digital cafe that you are talking about. It is a kind of telecentre. So if you have this – all these telecentres all around the country and connect. So it is so easy to facilitate the change of ideas, best practices, et cetera. That’s my point.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. Mike.
>> MIKAEL VON OTTER: Okay. You can’t expect people just taking orders that you must learn Internet. There must be a reason. They must be interested and see the advantage. And I think that’s crucial when we are talking about having more people included. Having them find the beauty of Internet so to speak. I just wanted to tell you that I think it is a true anecdote about the elderly lady that said no, I am not going to learn anything about the Internet. I don’t need it. I am so happy with my dog. She had a lot of poodles and this person said well, you know, if you just look up on the Internet about poodles you can find a lot of information about the poodle. And after awhile that woman was one of the most enthusiastic users because she find out she could use it for finding information on poodles and cooking. It was a place where you could find information about things that you were interested in. It was a place where you could communicate to people that you could otherwise not communicate with. And this I think is an extremely important point that you must find ways of having people interested, to find the advantage of using the Internet. Now who is to do this? And this is a point that I would like to raise which might be a little bit natural in Sweden but to a very large extent digital inclusion is pushed by volunteers like SeniorNet. Libraries are working very hard but it is not – it is not part of work so to speak. They are doing it because they find it important. It is not by order. SeniorNet, other educational organisations are doing it because they realise it is important.
I think that Government in Sweden and possibly in other countries are not doing their homework. They are abdicating from their responsibilities and I think it is really important that they do understand they do have a responsibility because they are the winners. The individual, of course, is also a winner. You can find out more about poodles. But Government is and the public sector is the winner because when we are looking forward, we know that in Sweden the number of 80-year-olds will be double. And we must use Internet to take care of elderly people in homes instead of moving in to hospitals.
We must use Internet to make people, make it possible to hire them, to recruit them. Make people recruitable. It was not too long ago I saw somebody asking for we want to hire a person to take care of the personal farm and to take care of the pigs on the farm. And you are supposed to know this and this and this about pigs and you have to have knowledge of computers. You must have computer experience. I didn’t know that we have computer experience taking care of pigs but that’s what this person required. So it is – that is also something for the Government. They are the winners in that case also. Schools also and segregation or integration. There are some beautiful examples in Sweden of people coming from other countries and do not speak Swedish and start using the Internet and include the family. And I think that Government in Sweden is advocating must be much more activity in promoting digital inclusion.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. Well, I hear from the audience – who would like – I would like to put a question to, when we look on this with responsibility and other things, there have been more and more it happens that there are people selling things over Internet. And when you should deliver the goods there will be no goods and end users are paying the price before I get it and there a lot of new things developing all the time. That’s kind of a cybercrime but it is very simple but it is very, very sad for the end users. Isn’t it? So should the Government, should the public sector have some harder rules on this? Should they agree with some kind of Internet police or something like that in the future?
>> YULIYA MORENETS: I think it is a quite complex issue, cybercrime. What is cybercrime? I don’t think we need to speak about cybercrime here but still a number of examples. For example, legal interception, it can be the consequences that your data will be on Internet or even you mentioned just a minute ago e-commerce. Of course, it can be identity fraud. It can be also what we call carding afterwards and resell bank details. All this is cybercrime and illegal activities online. And I think we have a plenary tomorrow on cybercrime, cybersecurity issues and I think the representative of the European Commission you just mentioned this, we need the harmonization and we need legislation in this area and data protection. And I know that the Council of Europe and European Commission work on this and even we need to harmonize legislature because it is an across the board issue. It is a very important issue, assistance. How to prevent and how can we prevent this to follow to become victim of this illegal activities online. Only by empowering end users and developing capacity tools.
We need to develop a specific approach for seniors and for this target group. Why? First of all, as I was saying you just mentioned they are not native digital users. They trust things. When, for example, they buy things online. They trust. We trust. I was watching on my grandparents. They trust. Someone call. They don’t use Internet. Assistance, what to do in the beginning and we have also an issue on how to receive the information on legal assistance, what to do and effect of being a victim. But with harmonized legislation and empowerment of end users and have a specific approach and I would like to underline, completely agree the development of intergenerational dialogue, again I think would achieve these and what could be very important from my point of view because once we are actually promoting the use of ICTs and the Internet literacy, for example, among seniors we should avoid this negative connotation. If we speak about safety and safe users of Internet in order to involve them in to the use of Internet but still empower and give information on how to deal with legal actions that we can face online.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. It is probably a bane.
>> LINDA CORUGEDO STENEBERG: Just to add on to that, if we want more people to go on the Internet to buy it must be safer. One thing that cannot live without the other. And then to lead this reasoning a bit in to the public field I mean it is clearly an interest for Governments and regional and local authorities to get people more online to do their tax returns, their certificates and driver’s license and all that because they will save a lot of money. But the counterpart is that if they want to make these savings you have to make an effort to – so that people feel comfortable and safe with this mode of communication and if you want to call it like that. I was in Copenhagen the day before yesterday and they are gradually now until 2015 putting more and more things digital. I mean there would be very little left of administrative routines that will be paper based, but they have to accompany this but also having to accompany with a lot of education of everyone actually. Thank you.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. We had one from the audience. Want to put a question.
>> Thank you. I much agree with Mikael who mentioned that the Government has not really done much. As in Sweden and Norway inclusion of the seniors in digital age is done by voluntary workforce. I hate to bring up another subject here because we covered quite a few of it the question is who put the Government in work. Who put the Government in business to begin with? And the democracy with it. What we see at least in Northern Europe is that the age of our members of parliament is staying constant or decreasing while the age of the population is increasing quite a bit. We live to be 80, 90 and maybe 100 years old. But on the subject of participation and inclusion, my question to the panel is really what – how can the Internet help out? How do you see that this situation can’t change? That the Government, the basis for the Government who is the parliament can be more representative of the ages, the different age groups we have today?
>> KESTUTIS JUSKEVICIUS: For example, we have a lot of projects in parliament. The name of this – the name of this project is e-democracy and they are really working with it. But I see the problem e-democracy. There is no e-democracy if there is no real democracy. First must be real democracy and uniqueness to communicate with the people. If you have no such feeling, Internet will not fail. I see the problem not in the tools, e-tools. You can create very quickly a lot of them and we have. The problem, the response of politician.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. Mikael, I give you the last word and then I make a short summary and then we are finished.
>> MIKAEL VON OTTER: Somebody wanted to raise it. I withdraw because somebody wanted to speak.
>> Yes, I will be very brief. How to include other people. I would like to return to the spot of responsibility of the society. There are a lot of examples of health care over IT where, of course, you have to provide the connection, the equipment and even train the people to be able to take care of them or their relatives at home. We have looked in to some of these projects. And I think we have some very positive results to report that once you do this with people who never touched a computer, they will not only appreciate the contact with the hospital or the doctor but they will also start to Skype with their grandchildren and so forth. So keep on supporting. And I think if you can fill this gap all the rest will take care of itself but be aware that there are still gaps to fill.
>> BO SVENSSON: 30 seconds, sir.
>> MIKAEL VON OTTER: I don’t have an answer to an extent one can make parliament look more like, but what I would like to point out that in certain countries there are three Internet ways of accessing parliament and other politicians. I do believe, I am not quite certain about how it works but you can – it is compulsory to a member of European Parliament to answer, react to questions if you can manage to have some 500 or 1,000 signatures on the question. I don’t quite remember how it works. But it is a way of increasing democracy in every way anyway.
This is something that I do understand that the Nordic countries have not been so good. And also in Britain, United Kingdom if enough people sign the issue and put forward to politician they have this place to react. It is not the place in Sweden.
>> LINDA CORUGEDO STENEBERG: It will be. If 1 million European citizens promote an initiative, the Commission is obliged to take up and look in to that proposal and eventually convert it in to legislation.
>> BO SVENSSON: All right. We are coming to the end.
>> OKSANA PRYKHODKO: I would like to deliver one comment from remote participation from Ukraine. It is about importance of literacy and success. And representatives of Ugan said success is more important. It is not in Ukrainian capital but in depressed section.
>> BO SVENSSON: Thank you. We are coming to the end of this road and I can say that it looks more like you are thinking of a boon than a bane. But still there have been some interesting questions coming up. And I will really say that I think the discussion about responsibility, the trustworthy and so on has been very nice for us to hear because you have pointed out both the individual responsibility from the end users and the responsibility from the public side and seen how it must go on side by side to develop this. And I think that’s the most interesting inclusion you can do of this statement. And then we have made small jumps on the side but it has been very, very interesting. And we thank you for taking the time to take part in this panel to give us that. And I will thank the audience, too, because they have taken part and we will finish with a nice applause for our panel.
(Applause.)
>> Thank you.
>> Nice to meet you.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.