“Digitalisation and inclusion are about participation, if you are not digitally included, you are not part of the society today”, said Dan Sjöblom in his opening of the two-day conference “Digital Inclusion in the Nordic-Baltic Region” on May 13 in Stockholm. Dan Sjöblom is Director General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority and he opened the conference for the Swedish presidency in the Nordic Council of Ministers.

The current policy context is quite complex. We have more than 30 different policies tackling digitalisation in the Nordic-Baltic region, of these 19 are new policies introduced in the last two years. This shows that digital inclusion is a very hot topic, but also that there is an urgent need to harmonize the policies and make them work together.

Part of this complexity relates to legal contexts. A team of Nordic researchers has looked into digitalisation and the Rule of Law to facilitate collaboration on developing legal frameworks and ensuring cyber security. The vulnerability of the Nordic-Baltic countries lies in the lack of specific guidelines and strategies for cyber security. At the moment we are limited to regulations set up by EU Law, and they will not suffice. We need a Nordic-Baltic approach as well. Recommendations include sharing anonymized data for development purposes, encouraging cooperation for establishing sector-specific databases, to building common data definitions rather than sector-specific legal implementations.

Building good frameworks and inclusive public services is not enough. We know there are still groups in society that are not digital, and thus excluded. NVL has worked on tools to address these hard-to-reach groups. It all starts with a dialogue, and with listening to the people. The conversation tool and the relationship tool are now available in all Nordic languages and help with these discussions.

Nordregio has created a tool for indicator mapping across the Nordic-Baltic. Monitoring is very important to help ensure digital inclusion as it helps to evaluate the success of different measures. The tool allows us to grasp the diversity of regions and compare the regions. Different groups of people at risk of digital exclusion have been consulted in the process of designing the tool. The tool is based on public data, is multidimensional, and helps to investigate and assess different factors related to digital inclusion.