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Stephen Timms MPNCH Byte Night Sleepover |
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Thank you, Jenny Delighted to be here tonight. I spent 16 years in IT industry with Logica and then with Ovum, both of whom are represented her tonight. I had a great time and simultaneously I was involved as a local politician in East End working to tackle problems like homelessness. My work colleagues were always really interested in what I was doing in East London, but culturally it always felt that the world of working in IT and the world of tackling homelessness were completely different and hardly ever overlapped. It wasn't that people in IT weren't interested – it just never happened. And so I welcome this event with particular enthusiasm and the fact that it is being so generously supported by the IT industry as it has been over the past four years. Encouraging and promoting corporate social responsibility is a high priority for us at DTI. We need to find ways of harnessing the entrepreneurial energy and creativity which abound in companies like those represented here, and applying them to the big social challenges which face us: raising standards in schools, keeping young people enthusiastic about learning through their teenage years, regenerating disadvantaged communities, helping unemployed people back into jobs and of course tackling youth homelessness. We need help with all of them. And I congratulate NCH on its pioneering and successful efforts in realising the potential of corporate social responsibility in its vital work with young people. The benefits of corporate social responsibility in addressing social challenges are fairly obvious – but increasingly there is evidence that it also boosts the competitiveness of individual firms and of the economy as a whole. One of the things I have been told repeatedly is that people coming into the corporate sector today are looking of course for a rewarding career, but increasingly they are wanting more than that – they want also to contribute to the wellbeing of our society and they are asking potential employers whether working with them will give them that opportunity. Those questions are being asked in particular by the most able young people – in other words exactly the kind of people I can see here tonight. I certainly see broadband making a contribution to the wellbeing of our society and the roll out of broadband is a top priority for me at the DTI. We made a very slow start with broadband, but we do now have some of the most competitive prices for broadband in the world, connections are being sold at the rate of around 20,000 a week – that's ADSL plus cable modems – and we are within a few weeks of Britain's one millionth broadband connection. During the autumn, a new Regional Broadband Unit will open for business. Working closely with the Regional Development Agencies it will work between public and private sector, to ensure best use is made of public sector purchasing and identify opportunities to aggregate public sector broadband demand, so maximising the potential to extend the reach of broadband services. We are going to need broadband in schools, hospitals and local councils to achieve the improvements which we're aiming for. If you go into a Jobcentre today you will find not those awful old boards with scruffy little postcards about local jobs, but smart kiosks providing information in a much more respectful way about jobs not just locally but right across the country. Those kiosks are part of the reason why unemployment fell again last month. It is a good example of how we can use the skills of this industry to benefit those who have been on the wrong end of the rich/poor divide in the past and ensure that we do not put a new digital divide in its place. And we're going to need a lot more examples in the future too. And in a very different sense, tonight is a great example of that happening as well. I hope we all manage to get some sleep at least tonight. Have a great evening. And my thanks to everybody for the contribution that you're making. Thank you. |
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Other speeches by Stephen Timms MP
(the following are available from the archive) |
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