Birmingham taps into young digital natives

Birmingham uses mashups to enhance collaboration and engage youngsters

Birmingham City Council is connecting with its younger citizens using a Google Maps and Second Life mash-up which could be developed to work in several areas of business.

Digital Birmingham, a council-led public, private and voluntary alliance, created a virtual environment to support its Virtual Birmingham project, which explores how the city can be presented using virtual worlds.

“We’re conscious of the fact that we’re not making as much use of Web 2.0, virtual worlds and social networking as we could be,” said Chris Price, director of Digital Birmingham.

Price said getting “digital natives” ­ young people who have grown up with technology ­ engaged in council issues was a challenge that could be met using digital viral technologies.

“The council’s planning department has a consultative group of young people, but they didn’t respond as well to paper maps as they did to 3D ones,” said Price.

The council hopes that Virtual Birmingham will help residents access services, improve promotion of local businesses and enhance events. It believes applications based on the technology, from virtual worlds supplier Daden, could be used in planning or to attract inward investment.

“We will talk to planners and developers about what they’d like to consult about,” said Price.