What is Digital Prosperity For All?
In this first blog from the Digital Prosperity Awards, we take a look at what makes these Awards different from most digital award shows, that focus on celebrating the technology and innovation of the entries, through instead a focus on what Digital Prosperity actually means for people and the planet.
Crossing the Digital Divide
Digital Prosperity for All is a vision and goal of ensuring that all nations and individuals, regardless of their background or circumstances, have equal access to the benefits and opportunities provided by the digital age. This concept recognizes the transformative power that technology has in shaping societies, economies, and individuals’ lives. It emphasizes the importance of bridging the digital divide, promoting digital literacy, and fostering inclusive digital ecosystems. By enabling everyone to participate in and benefit from the digital world, Digital Prosperity for All aims to create a more equitable and prosperous future.
Digital Prosperity for All seeks to address this digital divide by advocating for policies and initiatives that promote universal access to affordable and reliable internet connectivity and the services reliant on it. It involves expanding broadband infrastructure to reach underserved areas, reducing the cost of internet access, and ensuring that marginalized communities have the necessary tools and skills to benefit from digital technologies.
In today’s increasingly interconnected and digitized world, access to technology and the internet is no longer a luxury but a necessity. However, there are still significant disparities in digital access and skills across different communities and regions. Many individuals, particularly those in low-income areas, rural communities, or marginalized groups, face barriers to digital inclusion. This can limit their ability to access educational resources, employment opportunities, healthcare and community services, government services, and entrepreneurial ventures.
At the nation state level, digital technology and innovation is crucial to the economic and societal vision underpinning the 5-year, 10-year and longer duration plans of States to provide secure robust and growing economies, and around which society and people’s lives can be planned.
Technology can be transformative and help create a fairer, more prosperous, equally accessible world.
Digital Literacy and Skills
Promoting digital literacy is another crucial aspect of Digital Prosperity for All. Basic digital skills have become essential for everyday life, including navigating online platforms, conducting online transactions, and using digital tools for communication, learning, and productivity. Ensuring that individuals can acquire these skills is essential for their full participation in the digital economy. This includes providing training programs, digital skills workshops, and educational resources that are accessible to all. It also means using digital innovation to facilitate greater accessibility and simplicity of systems for those who otherwise would be left behind.
In addition to addressing connectivity and digital skills gaps, Digital Prosperity for All also focuses on fostering inclusive digital ecosystems. This involves creating an environment that supports and encourages digital entrepreneurship, innovation, and job creation. It entails removing barriers to entry for underrepresented groups in the tech industry, promoting diversity and inclusion in hiring practices, and providing resources and support for digital startups and small businesses.
Digital Prosperity for All acknowledges the potential of technology to drive economic growth and development. By empowering individuals with the necessary digital tools and skills, it aims to create equal opportunities for socioeconomic advancement.
The ability and opportunity to harness and master digital tools and skills is essential for personal prosperity.
Digital Innovation and Disruption
The Digital Prosperity Awards do recognize excellence in the exciting digital technologies that are driving technological change and do celebrate disruption, however it’s innovation and disruption in the goal of providing better services and solutions for humankind that we seek to identify and celebrate in the Digital Innovation pillar. We will go on in later blog posts to look at how AI and the other cutting-edge technologies will play a role on a fairer global shared prosperity and share the thoughts of some of our judges in what they are hoping to see.
The Awards’ Digital Transformation pillar really helps look at digital’s impact on better, more equitable and inclusive processes and outcomes. Its focus on the role of digital in fostering greater cooperation and better decision-making will show how digital can be used for good across and between all types of organization that make up society, whether business, government, or community civil society organization.
Digital innovation and transformation is crucial to help nations plan and meet the economic vision for their society.
A Better World for People and the Planet
Finally, the Empowering Society pillar recognizes the impact on people’s lives and the planet. Here we consider the importance of digital ethics, user rights and data privacy in an increasingly data-driven world. Protecting individuals’ digital rights and ensuring their data is used ethically and responsibly are crucial components of achieving digital prosperity with fairness.
These awards also go a step further, recognizing the role digital must play in meeting the challenges of living on a planet with finite resources, ensuring that prosperity is truly sustainable and unlocking digital’s power to provide more with fewer resources. As the barriers between digital and the real-world blur, innovation can help ensure prosperity can continue for future generations.
This therefore shows how the Awards differ by their objective and perspective, and why they are needed in today’s rapidly accelerating world, to ensure no one gets left behind and that all can prosper from the fruits of digital advancement.
Digital Prosperity for All is a vision that strives to ensure that every individual has equal access to the digital resources, opportunities, and benefits in today’s increasingly interconnected world. By recognizing initiatives that bridge the digital divide, promote digital literacy, and foster inclusive digital ecosystems, they aim to create a more equitable and prosperous future.
Bringing People and Organizations Together
All good Awards reflect the aspirations and aims of their founding body, which in this case is the Digital Cooperation Organization, or DCO, an intergovernmental body formed currently of 13 Member States. The DCO aims to enable digital prosperity for all by accelerating the inclusive growth of the digital economy amongst Member States and worldwide. Its current membership accounts for a combined population of more than half a billion people in nations of varying levels of digital advancement and innovation.
The DCO brings together governments, the private sector, international organizations, NGOs and civil society to enable more inclusive digital transformation and the growth of digital industries, with a collective vision that requires collective efforts from all these sectors, to shape a digital society that works in the best interests of everybody, and these Awards seek to recognize those that who can inspire a better world for all.
The Digital Prosperity Awards help ensure no one gets left behind in today’s rapidly accelerating world.