ND14: Empowering people

Full house at today's National Digital conference. But what's the hashtag?! #ND14 #ND14live #digileaders #DL100 pic.twitter.com/AGM3xuSceD — Chris Yiu (@clry2) June 18, 2014

Busy week last week: we hosted our first Digital Scotland Festival in Edinburgh on Monday, and then it was the 9th National Digital Conference and Digital Leaders 100 awards in London on Wednesday. At the conference I spoke in the afternoon plenary on digital inclusion, following an afternoon keynote delivered by Tristan Wilkinson from Go ON UK. My talk covered the foundational importance of participation in the government's Digital Scotland strategy - and the notion that, in today's world, fighting for social inclusion means fighting for digital inclusion. There was a real sense that digital is coming of age as a topic for policymakers. Even recently an event like this would have been dominated by discussions about technology and systems and platforms (and user need, of course). This time we did talk about those things - including an excellent morning keynote delivered by Russell Davies from GDS - but not at the expense of how we ensure that everyone in society can benefit from the huge opportunities the online world offers.

We need to make digital more about people and less about technology, is that possible? #digileaders #nd14live

— Kate Norman (@sarahkatenorman) June 18, 2014

After the conference closed we reconvened for the Digital Leaders 100 awards (those paying attention will note the 100% increase on last year's Digital Leaders 50). The winners are an impressive bunch, with DL Scotland, Colin Cook and Go4IT all meriting special mentions for placing in the top three in their categories. Well done!