Enabling Digital Enterprises
Economic Engagement
At the centre of the programme is the promotion of digital enterprises. At the most basic and individual level this involves increasing economic engagement through employment. At a more advanced level this involves the facilitation of the creation of new enterprises which can benefit from digital connectivity, especially the proposed infrastructure links between Liverpool and MediaCity:UK.
Individual Engagement
Connecting excluded individuals provides them with access to the basic tools for job searching and job application - all of which will feature within the programme. A key opportunity lies in the area of ‘homeshoring’, ie, the transfer of service industry employment from offices to home-based employees with appropriate ICT facilities. This has the potential to encourage disenfranchised people back into the workforce and can benefit those in disadvantaged communities and others who face challenges engaging with the world of work. The DIEP would provide individuals with the ICT tools needed to enable them to participate in homeshoring activity. A Digital Challenge finalist partnership in Nottingham has been trialling this concept with Boots the Chemist with great success.
Engaging with Enterprises
The creation of a network of Digital Enterprise Centres (DEC) offering access to much-needed digital assets will stimulate enterprise creation and generate growth in existing businesses.
Digital Enterprise Centres (DECs) have the dual role of hosting managed computing for the community and for commercial enterprises, but also providing physical business premises for the incubation of new, knowledge-based businesses. Each DEC will act as a community hub to provide a combination of services and opportunities for the previously digitally-excluded, to increase their ICT capabilities, access employment opportunities, or more significantly, start their own enterprise by utilising new skills.
Digital businesses will prosper as they benefit from access to computing clusters and hosting services; tailored business development support; and assisted networking, both with other co-located businesses and through AIMES’ established networks. The combination of the above skill-sets, capabilities and facilities is uniquely advantageous for small businesses, particularly in areas that have suffered economic exclusion.
In addition, the DEC model will provide computational back-end services for the proposed sub-regional Media Enterprise Centres, (a key element of the NWDA Strategy for Digital & Creative Industries) which aim to provide both virtual and physical links to the MediaCity:UK development in Salford, focused on the BBC relocation.
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