Our Digital Planet lands in Broadmead

Our Digital Planet is an exhibition showcasing the positive opportunities and developments that have been made possible by the internet. The exhibition is being sponsored by Nominet Trust, the charity established by Nominet (the organisation which administers the .uk domain names. Ed.) and will be in Broadmead – between Boots and Marks and Spencer (map here) – until 24th September.

The exhibition also includes a portakabin containing several laptops where internet taster sessions will be held from 10.30 am top 4.00 pm, Mondays to Fridays, plus friendly advice. There still 8 mn. people who have never used the internet and these folk risk becoming more out of touch as more public services move online.

Before its arrival in Bristol, the Our Digital Planet exhibition was on the promenade at Brighton. After leaving our fair city, the exhibition moves on to Cardiff (26th September – 14th October), Liverpool (17th October – 4th November) and finally Glasgow (dates to be confirmed).

Your correspondent was also pleased to meet social media mentor and rural broadband advocate John Popham (readers with long memories may remember John from Twicket! Ed.) and Nominet Trust’s Kieron Kirkland on his brief call.

Update 11/09/12: John Popham has now recorded his thoughts on this first day at Our Digital Planet in Broadmead, of which a short excerpt follows:

In truth, it was a fairly slow day, a useful gentle introduction for me to the initiative, and I was fortunate to be working alongside Kieron Kirkland and Vicki Hearn from the Trust who were able to show me the ropes. A Monday in the middle of a shopping centre, was probably always going to be a quiet day. But, already some interesting issues are starting to emerge. This is true Digital Inclusion activity. Some of the people who approached us had very little knowledge of the internet at all, Nearly all were frightened, about giving away too much information about themselves, about losing money to scams, and about breaking something. They faced multiple barriers to getting online, but a common factor was fear engendered by media scare stories.

Read John’s post in full.