"Tech for Today - and for Tomorrow" makes a resounding case that community tech can drive change in Britain

From the Promising Trouble blog

From the Promising Trouble tech consultancy, here’s a powerful case for “community tech” - or technology that serves community. Their new paper, Tech For Today - and Tomorrow, is a call-out to the next government in the UK - whatever it is - to heed the energy and experimentation already happening in digital civil society.

From their launch page:

The digital revolution has delivered extraordinary benefits, changing the lives of millions of people in Britain and billions around the globe. But the power and potential of these new technologies is not yet equally distributed. Innovation can and should deliver a better quality of life for everyone, everywhere.

In this paper, we recommend five steps that will anchor innovation in everyday life for people across Britain.

■ Supporting community innovation to drive social renewal, build community wealth, and address place-based inequalities.
■ Infrastructure for and investment in community ownership so that more community organisations can drive technology adoption, particularly in places and domains that do not typically benefit from innovation investment.
■ A community-first approach to skills that will enable more people to become innovators, increase Britain's technical skills and maturity, and strengthen our social fabric.
■ Putting community data at the heart of innovation so that Britain can make data-driven decisions and build AI systems that benefit, not hold back, communities.
■ Affordable connectivity that connects everyone, everywhere.

Innovation is not just something that takes place in labs and start-up incubators. The work of community organisations and social enterprises to create change from the neighbourhood scale up builds vital foundations for innovation, equity and technology adoption. For instance:

• Co-working hub and makerspace Liverpool DoES brings people together to build skills and relationships, access cutting-edge tools and turn their ideas into reality;

• Community land trust We Can Make is tackling the housing crisis;

• and Carbon Coop, Library of Things and Civic Square are rolling out necessary and practical services and skills to support more sustainable living.

The changes we need for tomorrow are already happening today, all over Britain, and they need investment and support so that more people can take part in the opportunities that innovation and new technologies create.

If everyone, everywhere is to benefit from the opportunities technology can bring, Britain must engage with the power of community innovation and invest in the people and potential we already have. Moonshots are nice, but better skills, opportunities and stronger social infrastructure are essential.

More here (PDF is here). While supporting this nod to policy makers Iand pitch to their coffers), we would only note that in other areas, “community tech” is moving apace, but in a much more libertarian, crypto-oriented and techno-anarchist way. See for example discussions around The Network State, particularly this framing by Vinay Gupta.