Opinion: David Farnsworth—‘Digital bridges can connect communities’
City Bridge Trust’s director and chief grants officer says the Lord Mayor’s flagship programme, to harness digital for social inclusion, builds on London’s centuries-old tradition of connecting three powerhouses — business, civil society and government—to drive change.
At City Bridge Trust, bridges are our business. We bridge the modern to the ancient. We’ve enabled tens of thousands of people to cross the Thames every day of the year.
Digital bridges are something different. We’re novices in that. We fund charities throughout Greater London, tackling some really difficult social problems — and we see those digital bridges as a way to actually bridge the divides to connect communities.
Three sectors, three powerhouses — business, civil society and government — at all levels, by our history and geography, we find ourselves between those three sectors.
We work with local government: and see how boroughs are starting to harness with digital the expertise and knowledge at neighbourhood ward-level to improve service delivery for people living in those boroughs.
We work at regional government level with the Greater London Authority. We’ve been impressed at the strides they’ve made to take their data forward and make that data more accessible for many of us working with communities in London to try and make a difference.
We also work with national government. We’ve seen good examples of some departments, some individuals, driving digital change, but also some really difficult moments when systematic digital change has failed.
The business sector everyday is underpinned by digital — billions of pounds worth of money and transactions underpinned by digital. The cyber-security around that is profound and the knowledge there is exceptional.
Civil society has an amazing spirit of entrepreneurism. We see some pockets of really innovative design.
The link between different sectors has been there for some time. The business and trade connection with civil society goes back to Dick Whittington, Elizabeth Fry and the thread of 900+ Lord mayors takes us to today.
Peter Estlin, the current Lord Mayor, is choosing to use Mansion House to platform tech but also social inclusion, making those connections and using the platform he has this year.
Back to the third sector and our historic geography between them, we’ve started to make baby steps to make the most of that positioning. We’ve worked with UBS to fund the Bike Project. That project is training people to repair bikes but then sell those bikes on web-based sales technology platforms. Their sales are 300% up per month.
In funding Islington Giving, three sectors working together spawned various different London’s Giving schemes, one of them, Lewisham Local, in South London using digital tech to capture volunteering hours, then translate that into benefit discounts within that locale.
City of London Police, our trustee, has a deep connection with them. They’re the lead force for the UK on economic crime. Part of that is absolutely anchored in digital, trying to work with SMEs and organisations to use cyber protection and also to educate people against cyber fraud.
If you look around you now at the assets that we have, sectors working together can start to build the digital bridges as well as the physical bridges that are so part of our history.
This is an edited version of the talk given by David at the inaugural gathering of the Catalyst programme in London on 11 July 2019.
