Thinking about digital through a diversity lens
Editor’s Note: Lequanne Collins-Bacchus served as a policy analyst at the Ontario Digital Service working on key files including Ontario’s approach to data. She currently serves as a Code for Canada fellow.
We’ve asked Lequanne to share her reflections on how Ontario is thinking about government technology and digital policy through the lens of diversity and inclusion.
The Ontario Digital Service (ODS) is on a path towards bringing hidden figures to the forefront, illuminating a wide range of Ontario talent in digital government.
I saw this firsthand during my time as a policy analyst.
The ODS is constantly thinking how it can do things better and pledges to create government services, policies and an environment that champions inclusion and diversity.
Technology gets built by people
At the core, the Ontario Digital Service team recognizes that technology gets built by very specific people and through many assumptions.
That’s why the users, the people directly engaging with government services, are top priority. The ODS empathizes with users and acknowledges their intersectionality, meaning people can hold different social categorizations from race and gender, for example, at the same time.
In parallel, the team serving all Ontarians, is diverse and comprised of many people of colour who are working in areas that range from
- accessibility
- digital content design
- policy development
- user experience design
- digital training
Asking tough questions
The multidisciplinary teams across the Ontario Digital Service (ODS) constantly ask questions that push the envelope on diversity, beyond race, re-imagining what diversity looks like in a digital world.
Questions including:
- What does accessibility mean when we are creating digital content, policy, user testing and engaging Ontarians?
- What does user testing mean when we create policy and digital content?
- In what ways does our age, economic status, race, legal status, gender, religion, sexual orientation and more shape how we experience the digital world?
And the teams consider a user’s circumstances to capture key insights.
For example, how does a user who has a smartphone in Toronto experience a digital service differently from a user in Manitoulin Island who has a different experience with their internet connection.
I was part of a team who was constantly asking tough questions, humbled knowing we didn’t have all the answers. We still don’t have all the answers, but these questions are slowly changing how we think about digital services.
Thinking about data through a diversity lens
How do we want to live with our data? This is a key question guiding the unfolding the province’s data work.
The world we live in is fundamentally different than what has come before, and it will be fundamentally different than what will come next. This rapid change reflects a renovation of our economy, how we live our lives.
As government, we are called to serve all people. As public servants, we serve the needs of everyone, strengthened by our policies for accessibility, inclusion, diversity. How this translates in our data is an entirely new frontier.
Ontario is a diverse province
With more than 40 per cent of the population of Ontario born outside of Ontario, what better place to learn other, yet unexplored, imaginations of diversity and technologies which serve Ontarians.
As the data future unfolds, we have an opportunity to examine digital rights — how might we honour the rich communities which surround technology? How might we better use data to empower and serve people?
Our data flows and gets handed off to different ‘producers’
To analogize hip-hop as a technological phenomenon, the artform and community of artists constantly moves from the organic freestyle and beatbox to the microphone to amplify their voice to producers manipulating sounds to produce a song to the DJ remixing and sampling these songs. In every step of this process, another person or team of people have access to this song. Our data moves in the same way, between many hands, for many different reasons.
We can’t do it alone
So much digital talent and expertise exists in Ontario and I firmly believe that the Ontario Digital Service is taking action to nurture an inclusive, diverse, flourishing future.
Ultimately, it’s going to take all of us to design a (digital) future that brings dignity to all Ontarians.
Get in touch
I’m continuing my work to bring a diversity lens into the services we build for Canadians in my role as a Code for Canada fellow (P.S. Save the date: The Code 4 Canada Summit is happening March 10–11, 2020!)
If you have any questions or opportunities for collaboration, respond below or connect with me on LinkedIn.
