ADM+S and Telstra launch 2023 Australian Digital Inclusion Index including first look at Mapping the Digital Gap results
For the first time, the Australian Digital Inclusion Index includes outcomes from remote First Nations Australia as part of its digital inclusion data dashboard.
The 7th Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII) was launched today in Adelaide on Kaurna land by Telstra CEO Vicki Brady, Distinguished Professor Julian Thomas, and Dr Lyndon Ormond-Parker, with the first results from the Mapping the Digital Gap project now able to be viewed on the ADII data dashboard at digitalinclusionindex.org.au/dashboard.
The ADII provides a picture of the distribution of digital inclusion outcomes across Australia and tracks changes in digital inclusion over time. It is a project headed by Dr Julian Thomas in partnership with Telstra, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, and Swinburne University of Technology. It tracks digital inclusion outcomes along three key dimensions: access, affordability, and digital inclusion.
The results from the 2022 Mapping the Digital Gap research round address a critical lack of data on digital inclusion outcomes in remote First Nations communities and reveal a significant gap when compared against national figures.
The event was followed by a panel discussion of experts and researchers involved with the ADII and Mapping the Digital Gap projects, discussing the complexities of the data and the range of issues facing disadvantaged communities they have observed that widen the digital gap. These issues include the transition to online service delivery, device precarity, existing disadvantages, and an uncoordinated ‘market’ approach to addressing the digital divide by various local and state-level organisations.
“All of these [issues] really need to be part of the thinking when we go forward into this next stage of ensuring that everybody has access to what is an essential service” said Dr Daniel Featherstone, “and is being described increasingly as a human right”.
The ADII data dashboard can be viewed and interacted with at digitalinclusionindex.org.au/dashboard and the 2023 ADII report including Mapping the Digital Gap case studies can be found at digitalinclusionindex.org.au/download-reports/.
An annual outcomes report interpreting the data from the Mapping the Digital Gap project will be published later this year.
