Anthony Zacharzewski

At just after four o’clock we’ll be gathering together after our various sessions to talk briefly about how we answer the CityCamp question – what kind of future do we want to create together for our city? – with projects and practical ideas for tomorrow.

There have been some great discussions over the course of the afternoon, but tomorrow is all about the action. What practical projects, websites, web apps would you build to make the city a better place?

We’ll share people’s ideas on here, but you can share yours in the comments – and come to Hove Town Hall tomorrow to help build them.

CityCamp Brighton 3 Saturday programme by The Democratic Society

The video of this afternoon’s session will be available soon in the link to Public-i’s website below:

This year, CityCamp prizes are focusing on developing ideas into action.

Like previous years, CityCamp is about creating positive ideas that can make a real difference for our city. Over the three days of the event, teams will come together to discuss and work up practical proposals, and then to pitch them.

This year, five projects will win small grants of £500 each accompanied by a tailored package of support and introductions into the services, which will help the people turn their ideas into reality. Mentoring, connections, technical and business support, will all be delivered by CityCamp partners and the CityCamp team. Then at CityCamp 3.5 during September’s digital festival, we will bring back those five projects for an update and select the overall project of 2013.

There will be two extra prizes on the day. One of the five projects will be chosen as Weekend Winner. One project – perhaps the same one – will be chosen as TEDxBrighton Ideas Lab winner. The TEDxBrighton Ideas Lab prizewinner will get a free spot in TEDxBrighton’s Ideas Lab space at the Corn Exchange.

Judging

We will also be judging events a little differently. Unlike the last two years, where a team from the funding organisation plus the organisers has judged the winner, this year we’ll be adding a dose of randomness.

If you come to all three days of CityCamp 3, you can put your name forward on Sunday morning to be a judge. We will draw three judges from that pool, who will judge the prizes alongside one of the CityCamp team, Natalie from TEDxBrighton and last year’s winner Paul Richards of GigBuddies. As ever, the judges will be looking for ideas that can make a difference and sustain themselves without huge budgets.

On the Sunday afternoon, those judges will pick five winners to go forward to the development stage, the Weekend Winner and the TEDxBrighton Ideas Lab prizewinner.

CityCamp is coming back to Brighton from 22-24 March 2013.

We’re working on venues and speakers, but the basics are the same:

• A weekend of learning, discussing and creating solutions that help our city
• Inspiring speakers from the city and beyond
• Prizes for the best ideas
• A chance to work with enthusiastic experts from completely different lines of work
• It’s still completely free and open

Watch this space for more information in the next few weeks, but put the date in your diary now.

An update on Digital Natives project from Mark Walker

I’m pleased to say that the Digital Afterschool Club will run after the half term break.

• 3.30 – 5.00pm, Thursday 8 November until Thursday 13 December [parent's showcase event on 20 December]

It will cost £35, with a discount for anyone who is also attending the school’s Afterschool Club on the same day [just tell me when you book].

Booking forms are attached and circulating in school – it’s first come first served but I’ll do my best to fit in everyone who attended last year. If it proves popular enough we may also start another session.

Based on feedback from last year we will have a slightly smaller group this year and we are also trying out a partnership with the Afterschool Club, to see what links we can make to make the club more sustainable.

HELP NEEDED
We were really lucky last year because we had a couple of people who came along as volunteers. It means we have an extra adult [or two] in the room, which means the children can more easily work in groups. You don’t need any digital skills – although whatever you bring will be very handy – and you don’t need to come along every week.

Finally, if you haven’t seen it there is a video of what we did last term at http://vimeo.com/50851849. You need a password to view it, which is 1elmgrove

Here’s where we’ve got to (click to enlarge)

In advance of Monday’s CityCamp Digital Inclusion event, here are some thoughts from Council staffer Sophie Cox, on the purpose of Digital Inclusion.

The purpose of any activity on digital inclusion should be to improve people’s life chances by enabling everyone in the city to access and use technology. One of the council’s roles should be that of a leader and facilitator of a multiagency group who are able to provide services.  At present the council considers working age people to be the priority group for receiving services to support digital inclusion.

There are 4 clear work streams

• Service Improvement – improving services to the public through the use of digital technology
• Learning – providing skills and education to those requiring it in order to access digital services
• Equipment/Infrastructure – provision of hardware and infrastructure to improve access to digital services
• Communications & Engagement – signposting individuals to online services and telling them where they can get help

But…

• People don’t know what is available, who provides what service or how effective it is, so perhaps an audit of what is already available and how effective the current provision is should be conducted
• In order to make sure we are able to provide the right level of service to those who need it most, it could be helpful to pull together information that exists across the city to really understand the scale of the issue in Brighton and Hove rather than rely on national data sets. 
• Equipment and infrastructure could to be separated into two separate themes as they are separate issues

At the CityCamp digital inclusion event on Monday, Paul Colbran from the Council will be talking about their ideas for Metro Wi-fi. In advance of that, he sets out what it might mean for the city. 

Metro wireless networks have been in existence in the UK for a number of years with varying degrees of success. Early deployment of town centre wireless networks was based on the delivery of public internet access via laptops with the user paying either a monthly, weekly or daily subscription.

This model was very prescriptive and in most cases was relatively unsuccessful. However as access to the internet via mobile handsets and PDAs increases justification for a privately funded metro wifi network has increasingly moved away from a chargeable subscription model for internet access towards a value added free service with revenue being derived from sponsorship, advertising and other digital services with additional charges only being levied for specific downloads such as games and music.

Despite this move away from a charged to a predominately free service there remains a major barrier for the private sector, how do you deploy a metro wide wifi network when you require numerous potential sites at street level.

To address this problem approaches have been made to local authorities to use council assets including street furniture to support the delivery of such a network. However such potential engagements have previously founded on out dated subscription based models or on the banks of a business case which has required the local authority to financially guarantee the sustainability of the network on the back of delivering public services. An approach which because of procurement processes and existing contracts has been almost impossible to realise.

1.  The User Experience – Why City Wireless?

In terms of the end user greater emphasis is now being placed on delivering free access to the end user through a variety of commercial models including unlimited free access to local information including tourism. Moreover beyond this user experience it is anticipated that multiple commercial services could be delivered to mobile handsets and digital screens all of which could generate a potential revenue stream including:

• Location Based Advertising – Retail/Cafes/Hotels/Tourist Attractions
• Sponsored Web Links
• Mobile Payments
• Mobile Vouchers – local retailers/restaurants
• E Tourism – Interactive tour guides
• Portal for Local Advertising -
• Community IPTV – Mobile Content

In this respect it is envisaged that by supporting the delivery of a digital platform Brighton and Hove City Council could perform the role of enabler in enabling and promoting the following:

• Visitor Experience: delivery of a digital experience to mobile handsets whilst visiting Brighton and Hove.
• Retail Experience: support the Brighton BID and the Business Forum -opportunity for retailers and other businesses to advertise, present promotions etc This commercial strategy would not be focused on the major retailers but would have a menu of commercial options which would suit all retail businesses in Brighton and Hove.
• Economic Development: support local Digital SME’s, attract inward investment
• Social and Economic Value: support moves towards channel shift and contribute towards addressing digital exclusion through the availability of free wifi connectivity.

2.    The Opportunity for BHCC

Despite this previous background of limited private sector ambition and outmoded business models the increasing demand for more public space metro wifi in the United Kingdom and the emergence of new commercial offerings from leading telecommunication companies now offers a real opportunity for local authorities to embrace metro wifi opportunities by becoming the catalyst for deployment, not through investment or financial tenancy, but by providing access to your assets including street lighting through a concessionary agreement and in doing so:

• Develop a long term partnership through a public service concession which is excluded from the scope of the 2006 Public Contracts Regulation.
• Generate long term revenue through an annual rental and revenue share agreement.
• Enable the development of a digital platform to support business, retail, tourism and community engagement.

Therefore in the case of Brighton and Hove and subject to more detailed evaluation the opportunity exists through partnership to deliver a metro wifi network within Brighton and Hove which be driven by commercial opportunities from the private sector rather than reliance or even an expectation that the public sector will directly use this network to deliver council services.

3.    Benefits and Commercial Value

In terms of benefits these can be defined in a number of ways some of which can be directly quantified in terms of potential revenue streams, whilst in other areas the creation of such a digital platform will deliver benefits which are less tangible in commercial terms but potentially will add value to the way public services are delivered, the way in which digital inclusion is addressed and local business benefits from improved broadband connectivity.

Business and Community Benefits:

• Support Economic Development and Regeneration with the consequent link to non-financial benefits: With an increasing need for modern and flexible infrastructure to support modern business the instigation of a Metro WiFi Strategy by the local authority will send a positive signal to business, attract inward investment and indirectly deliver a network which could support training, education and other council and community services.

• Tourism:  By delivering a platform which would support retail and tourism and enhance the visitor’s experience to Brighton, this would enable BHCC to deliver a co-ordinated digital experience.

• Retail:  As a key sub regional shopping centre the provision of a digital platform within the centre of Brighton would offer a unique selling point for retailers in with a view to attracting new visitors and increasing footfall.

• Catalyst to address Social and Digital Inclusion: Create a channel through which digitally excluded communities can start to be enabled (IPTV, Training and Education). Whilst difficult to quantify at this stage there is evidence to suggest that digital inclusion can start to have a financial benefit in terms of reducing social funding to support individuals and communities. In this respect this has become a key driver for local authorities in challenging and addressing the “digital divide”.

• An Enabler for Community Engagement: As the internet now constitutes such an important means of engagement at both a local community and local authority level, the availability of a network which will offer a degree of free access offers the opportunity for the effective delivery of local government information and a platform for sharing community related content. As more end users start using smartphones  with a wi fi capability (projected 75% usage rate by 2014) this type of strategy will become increasingly relevant.

In terms of the recommendations detailed in this report these overall benefits are particularly reflected in the following areas:

Digital Wireless City

• Address social inclusion and community engagement through free access to a walled garden portal containing council content and information.

• Support inward investment with the development of local digital SME’s who could exploit the city centre digital platform (applications, software design)

• Support retailers in the city centre – promote Brighton as a digital destination. Deliver a platform for retailers to interact with consumers, advertise and promote via the web.

• Commercial opportunities through advertising – promoting attractions and events.

• Platform available for potential future use by the public sector in supporting the delivery of public services

Commercial Benefits

From BHCCs perspective the direct commercial benefits can be generated from three direct channels one from a rental/concession fee, revenue share and thirdly from how the Council can exploit the digital platform through advertising and sponsorship.

Here’s the latest from our friends at Exploring Senses, who have been making use of their funding to deliver over twenty free Toy Hacking events.

Exploring Senses – CommuniToy launch

The national campaign to get people toy hacking CommuniToy will be launched at Designersblock during London Design week 19th-23rd September 2012. At this event there will be a Toy Hacking exhibition, and series of Toy Hacking workshops located inside the Royal Festival Hall/Southbank Centre. We will also be providing a free Robot Relays workshop there on Sunday 23rd. ES will be talking about CommuniToy in Brighton and Hove at City Camp 2.5.

Exploring Senses – Progression support needed

In September ES are starting to work with young people to make digital animations. We plan to turn this into a citywide project. The films will be shown at BYC art events including Occupy (27th October 2012) and during the Brighton Fringe International Youth Arts Festival in May 2013. ES would like to also launch all of this and more at your event. We understand the importance of social media and would appreciate your help in helping turn our idea, activities and events into real successes.

The CityCamp 2012 funding has helped ES achieve successful city wide outreach and beyond, by delivering over twenty free Toy Hacking events in Brighton, Hove, Leeds and Exeter, and we wish to expand further. We would love some support with social media and equipment (hardware) to successfully deliver our future projects. All help from the CityCamp community is welcome.