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Will the IAB project put power back in the hands of people in Blaenau Gwent?

MANY of us are aware of the levels of deprivation found across Wales. Blaenau Gwent, with its former industrial economic background, is frequently found on lists of such indicators. For example, one in three children there live in poverty while the borough has the highest percentage of Job Seekers Allowance claimants in Wales.

It is in this area that a new project aimed at improving opportunities by using new technologies is being introduced. No doubt you’ve heard such promises before, but this one is different. It is aimed at increasing broadband take-up in Blaenau Gwent by getting people involved in producing online content and realising the potential for themselves, particularly among long-term unemployed in the borough. Even though broadband is generally available throughout the region, 60% of the population who have access to it fail to see its relevance to their daily lives, even though the same audience regularly watches television.

The project will be overseen by the still-relatively new Institute of Advanced Broadcasting at the University of Wales, Newport. Over the coming months, working with the local authority and the Welsh Assembly Government, the IAB will focus its work on microbroadcasting research in Ebbw Vale, getting local people interested in creating their own microbroadcasts based in and around their local communities.  In doing so, they will equip themselves with new skills and create new opportunities both on a personal level and perhaps on a professional level, too

The IAB is based at the University of Wales, Newport’s Caerleon Campus.  It was set up in September 2008 and is an industry-academic partnership between the University and the Wesley Clover Corporation, whose chief executive, Simon Gibson, authored the 2007 Gibson Report on Commercialisation in Wales, which recommended closer co-operation between business and academia to exploit research ideas originating in Welsh universities.

Wesley Clover’s chairman is Sir Terry Matthews, Wales’ richest man, and his company  has a track record of investing in new technologies and new business models which bring together the latest developments in the digital economy and broadcasting. The IAB’s director is Gary Thompson, a technology expert with a background in the telecoms industry. He was originally attracted to the post because of Wesley Clover’s engagement with academia and because the university is home to one of the UK’s leading schools of art, media and design.

The IAB was set up specifically to carry out research of its own, to bring together the latest digital research and to investigate new ways of doing business. The latter has taken on an urgent relevance in the light of convergence of new technologies such as mobile phones, broadcasting and other mobile technology.

Convergence of these technologies has, and continues to give rise to, the breaking down of traditional business methods, sometimes adding to the chaos we have seen in the economy and the workplace over the past two years. However, it is in the fog of this confusion that the IAB hopes to identify and pursue new business models. Further appointments are imminent as the centre has recently advertised for a professor of digital technology.  Whoever is appointed, he or she will have to exploit the latest academic research and thinking and apply this to real life situations.

In addition to its full time staff, an advisory board comprising broadcasting and technology experts from Welsh and UK industry meets regularly to discuss activities and the IAB’s general direction. The Institute’s initial focus is on the south east Wales region, where it plans to create a number of testbeds – ‘living labs’ – to test new products services.  One example of such a testbed is the microbroadcasting project.

The first content came from a joint project between the IAB, Gwent Police, Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council and pupils from Tredegar Comprehensive, with the production of a community film on the dangers of texting and driving. Cow, as it was called, was a phenomenal success. It was posted on YouTube and scored over five million hits. In addition, it was the subject of worldwide publicity not just in the UK – where it was shown on BBC3 – but particularly in the US.

Although such publicity is welcome, the IAB measures it success not just by the number of viewings it receives but, crucially, how it affects people’s behaviour. Follow up studies amongst the target audience showed that young people were profoundly shocked by the film and agreed that it would change their driving and texting habits.

Similarly, the latest project, for the long-term unemployed, is aiming at increasing levels of self-esteem and confidence that will gradually build to establish longer term social and economic changes. Planned to run for three years, it is hoped the interim results will provide sufficient evidence so that they can be used elsewhere.

The IAB ran its first conference at the Celtic Manor Resort in November last year, generating interest from further south east Wales and further afield. The event was funded by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board (TSB) which is working closely with the Institute, while Dr Philip Hargrave, chief executive of the TSB’s Digital Communications Knowledge Transfer Network, was one of the event’s key speakers.

The long term aspiration for the university is that the IAB will become the recognised centre of advanced broadcasting within the UK and Europe, a knowledge base where people will come not only to ask questions but to find answers to how Wales – and particularly its deprived areas – can use technology as a means of finding its own, unique solutions to problems that have remained unsolved for decades.