Present: John Lock, Adrian Norman, Danny Budzak, Helen, Peter Chauncy, Michael Mulquin, Richard Steel, Loraine Leeson, Rik Lewis, Richard Stubbs
Apologies: Gavin Sealey, Jon Harris (Late)
Richard Stubbs gave an overview of the current state of play with respect to Newham.net, DkTV, the Newham portal and Objective 2 and Wired Communities bids.
John Lock described a UeL Objective 2 bid based on content development.
Richard Steel said that New Deal IT had been nominated for an award. He also noted that a Pathfinder bid for eProcurement was being made by the borough.
Loraine outlined a project on teacher/parent relations using eMail at Godwin school
With respect to the approved Newham Community Learning Grid John Lock noted that there appeared to be virtually no local online learning materials in spite of large local budgets.
John Lock outlined issues raised in current draft. Cabinet had agreed that a borough strategy should be developed. It was agreed that the draft strategy should be presented to the ICT in the Community Sub Group.
Noted need to explore more fully the possible links between the Council’s data warehouse and smartcard projects in terms of a wider community based role.
Noted that we needed to link the strategy in to the Community Forums and that this was probably best done via the ICT in the Community Group. However we also noted that it was essential to engage the key strategy people in key local organisations if a general alignment of approach was to be achieved. Hence we need both wide community endorsement via the for a and organisational buy in.
Adrian noted that integration can work to make innovation harder whatever we do we must have a focus for innovation and experiment.
Richard Stubbs noted that if no action was taken the digital divide would get worse, wiring the Council estates could play a major role in challenging this and also provide much improved services to tenants.
Loraine said that we needed to ensure that the strategy did not just treat people as users of content but should also focus on their role as providers.
In terms of achieving a holistic approach a strategy should not be based solely on agreements but more on a process that can take account of the unexpected. We need buy in from key decision makers, techies and early adopters. We need not just a laboratory for experimentation but also a means for exploiting our successes.
We conducted a headline SWOT
Strength = Projects, Extranet & portal
Weakness = Capacity and resources
Opportunity = exploitation
Threat = NeOn becomes irrelevant in face of larger players.
John and Richard to write proposal to the Borough on how this should be taken forward and making it clear that NeOn itself would need to be resourced to fulfil its proposed role.
The proposal should be submitted to the ICT in the Community Strategy Group and from there consultation should be online through the Core list, through the community for a, 2010 partnership and Newham Business Forum. Once strategy had been fully consulted on it should be launched at a high profile NeOn conference.
Noted that currently NeOn is running on empty in that Richard Stubbs work for NeOn is no longer paid by any ERDF project and similarly there is no funding. Agreed in terms of conference organisation a secondment would be needed or other means of paying for around 4 weeks work, also direct costs would need to be met.