The Digital Divide

From the acceleration of telehealth, to courts adapting to online delivery, the ‘user experience’ in systems and services such as justice and health has changed drastically since the beginning of the pandemic. While some of these accelerated innovations and streamlined services have proven beneficial, the sudden shift to remote service delivery has also increased risks to service engagement, particularly for vulnerable individuals and communities.This episode is a special multi-disciplinary discussion for Capgemini’s ‘Impact Together’ week in partnership with the RMIT Social Innovation Hub. Capgemini’s Head of Innovation, Dheeren Velu speaks with Riley Ellard, Senior Advisor, Research and Advocacy from RMIT’s Centre for Innovative Justice, and Charlotte Fliegner, Innovation Fellow from RMIT’s Health Transformation Lab to explore both the benefits and challenges in manoeuvring and managing these complex systems and services in a COVID-normal context.Host: Dheeren Velu, Head of Innovation, Capgemini

The COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing measures put in place here in Australia and in many places across the globe to stop its spread, has not only highlighted the digital divide that exists in many countries, but in many instances, exacerbated it.With school children forced to learn from home and many of us forced to work remotely, we have been required to be more digitally connected than ever. However - of course not everyone has the access, ability or affordability to use online technologies effectively.It raises many critical questions, including how do we bring those individuals and communities who are ‘digitally excluded’ online and how do we prevent the digital divide from becoming even greater, now and in a post-covid world?In this episode we discuss these all-important questions with a panel of digital inclusion experts –Professor Julian Thomas, Director, ARC (Australian Research Council) Centre of Excellence at RMIT; Lucie Taurines, Capgemini’s Group Head of Digital Inclusion; and David Spriggs, CEO of Infoxhange.Host: Vinisha Mulani, Engagement Manager at the Social Innovation Hub

The recent weeks have seen a rise in anti-racism rallies and online advocacy on #BlackLivesMatter - igniting in the United States and now here in Australia. 'Same Story, Different Soil' has been an ongoing mantra when considering the anti-racism movement in an Australian context - we have a conversation with Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson and Assoc. Professor Marta Poblet to discuss the history of the movement, where we are now, the digital tools we have and how we can better use these tools for a positive impact.About our speakers:Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson is a Goenpul woman of the Quandamooka people and is Professor of Indigenous Research at RMIT University. She was Australia’s first Indigenous Distinguished Professor in 2016 and was a founding member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). Professor Moreton-Robinson was elected as a member of the American Academy of Art and Sciences in 2020. She is the author of Talkin’ Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism (UQP); The White Possessive: Property, Power and Indigenous Sovereignty (Minnesota Press); and the editor of several books, including Critical Indigenous Studies: Engagements in First World Locations (The University of Arizona Press).Marta Poblet is an Associate Professor at RMIT University’s Graduate School of Business and Law. She is one of the co-founders of the Institute of Law and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and past researcher at ICREA (Catalonia). She holds a JSD in law (Stanford University 2002) and a Master in International Legal Studies (Stanford University 2000). Her research interests cover different areas at the intersection of law, political sciences, and technology. She is also interested in the connections between technology developments (AI, distributed technologies, human-computer interaction) and the different theories of democracy and citizenship. She has been the PI of a number of national and international research projects and has published over 80 scientific articles and book chapters on these topics.Host: Vishaal Kishore, Director, Applied Innovation at RMIT

Hosted by Rachel Wells, Storyteller at the RMIT Social Innovation Hub, our first episode of Space for Social Change, introduces RMIT’s continued and growing work in ‘Applied Innovation’, where we’re testing and growing long term institutional responses to social, urban and economic challenges. We also explore how the focus of Applied Innovation has changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.To do all this, we speak with three individuals who between them, and individually, have a great deal of experience when it comes to Applied Innovation and driving transformation through innovation, across a variety of sectors, from health and public policy to social services and justice: Professor Vishaal Kishore, RMIT’s Director of Applied Innovation and the Director of the RMIT-Cisco-Health Transformation Lab, located at the Social Innovation Hub; Micaela Cronin, Director of the Future Social Service Institute and Rob Hulls, Director of the Centre for Innovative Justice, also located within the Social Innovation Hub at RMIT.