Did you know, today is World Telecommunication & Information Society Day 🌍📲💻
The theme of this year’s awareness day is ‘digital technologies for older persons and healthy ageing’, with a focus on highlighting the challenges of an ageing global population in regards to digital inclusivity. The ITU Secretary General Houlin Zhao has stated that ‘equitable access to digital technologies isn’t just a moral responsibility, it’s essential for global prosperity and sustainability’. Indeed, helping to build smarter cities, combatting age-based discrimination, and ensuring financial inclusion of older persons is hugely reliant on initiatives which drive forward digital accessibility, agility and connectivity to all areas of society.
Access to technology is undoubtedly one of the great social divides, with older adults already having a significant digital disadvantage – 18% of over-65s do not have internet access. Propelled by enforced isolation, older adults increasingly turned to technology during the Covid-19 pandemic, but not all were able to connect or communicate with friends and family via the internet. Age UK advises that those who have some digital skills but do not have the internet at home can access the internet in a range of public places. Though with government cuts leading to the closure of vital public facilities such as libraries where people can typically access the internet services for free, further obstacles to ubiquitous connectivity are unfortunately being put into place.
Our core business offering of free public WiFi in retail environments goes some way to alleviating digital poverty, and we strongly believe that our solutions can bring about positive change in communities – from maximising the use of public spaces, to providing greater access to essential services such as healthcare, public transport and council information. We work to a program of continuous improvement by reviewing our platforms for our clients and their customers – ensuring they are as intuitive, accessible, and user-friendly as possible. We actively encourage our clients to promote their public WiFi service in order to benefit as many people as possible, and in turn to collect information on their users to tailor better experiences for them.
To find out more about how our WiFi solution can contribute to better connected communities for all, please get in touch with us today! More information on the UN’s initiatives for World Telecommunication & Information Society Day 2022, check out this link → https://lnkd.in/gs3jEn2
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