Reboot Britain event this summer

It looks as if there will be a major digital engagement event in July with this announcement of the Reboot Britain project from Rohan Gunatillake at NESTA:

"As summer approaches the UK is in the midst of an unprecedented economic and political crisis.

"The cumulative impact of a near-collapse of the financial system, the ongoing recession, the MPs’ expenses scandal and the prospect of years of cuts in public expenditure are creating an alarming climate of public anger, pessimism and mistrust in public institutions.

"But instead of more pessimism, can we really look at how we can punch through the gloom? And in particular, how can we take advantage of the radically networked digital world we now live in to help revive our economy, rebuild our democratic structures and improve public services?

"Reboot Britain is a major new project, which will take a top-to-bottom look at the challenges we face as a country and the new possibilities that - uniquely - this generation has to overcome them.

"The project will be launched in June with the online publication of Reboot Britain - 10 viewpoints compiled by a series of distinguished contributors and edited by the economist and writer, Diane Coyle.

"This will be followed by an event, designed in collaboration with partners and participants."

As I've written over here, the final Digital Britain report is due by early July ... and Steve Moore is involved in Reboot Britain ... so maybe something to co-incide with what was to be 2gether09 is likely.

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Comment by David Wilcox on May 26, 2009 at 9:42pm: A bit more digital engagement news - Simon Dickson follows up the Sunday Times rumour that Tom Watson will step down as e-government/digital engagement Minister after the Cabinet reshuffle expected in a few weeks.

Comment by David Wilcox on May 26, 2009 at 5:53pm: My inside tip for Digital Champion is Martha Lane Fox, founder of Lastminute.com. Mostly from the economic side?

Comment by Paul Nash on May 26, 2009 at 4:09pm: Thanks for the "heads up!" it sounds interesting. I haven't been to a NESTA event for some time and there's always something to talk about even if it does swing towards the outer limb of the spiral arm of the galaxy sometimes.

Reading through blog posts and looking at this proposed event I am conscious that people move easily between social and economic as if they were the same thing. I don't think that they are. They're linked and have dependencies but they're not the same so I can only appeal to people to be clear about what they mean.

I am also conscious that a lot of this activity is in response to the Government's desire to promote social and economic inclusion and I am mindful of Stephen Dodson's empassioned appeal to the moral duty to ensure inclusivity for all. I get a sense that activity is diverging and runs a risk of losing cohesion. While I understand this I'm not sure that it's a good thing as people begin to focus on agendas and risk losing sight of the bigger picture but I don't have any answers right now - perhaps the announcement of the digital champion and the task force will resolve that one.

For all of the concerns this is, on the whole, a positive response to the issues of social and digital inclusion and it's good to see events which are starting to look forward and consider innovative options - hooray!