{"id":27566,"date":"2025-10-24T09:53:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T07:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/?p=27566"},"modified":"2025-10-24T12:49:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T10:49:45","slug":"all-digital-ceo-david-mekkaoui-democracy-needs-inclusion-and-inclusion-needs-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/all-digital-ceo-david-mekkaoui-democracy-needs-inclusion-and-inclusion-needs-investment\/","title":{"rendered":"All Digital CEO David Mekkaoui: “Democracy needs inclusion \u2014 and inclusion needs investment”"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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How can we make sure that everyone has a voice in the digital age?<\/p>\n

In the latest episode of ALDA\u2019s podcast Shades of Democracy<\/b><\/span>, our CEO David Mekkaoui<\/span> <\/b>joins the discussion \u201cDigital Inclusion: Between Innovation and Participation\u201d <\/b>to explore how digital inclusion is becoming a cornerstone of modern democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracy needs inclusion \u2014 and inclusion needs investment,<\/span>\u201d <\/b>David reminds us. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need funding for local competence centres where digital inclusion really takes place. Every research and innovation project should dedicate 10% of its funding to digital inclusion. Let\u2019s target specific groups in all investments \u2014 the ones who are at the biggest risk of exclusion.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

For David, inclusion goes beyond access \u2014 it\u2019s about connection, purpose, and empowerment:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of digital competence centres isn\u2019t to teach how to click, but why to click. Imagine grandfathers connecting with their grandchildren, migrants filling their residence papers online, or citizens creating and sharing maps together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local ecosystems play a crucial role in making digital skills socially meaningful and in showing real impact. As David highlights:<\/p>\n

\u201cDigital participation starts when people stop feeling like users and start feeling like citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tune in to this episode to hear more about how digital inclusion can turn innovation into empowerment.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPodcasts<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tiHeartRadio<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can we make sure that everyone has a voice in the digital age? In the latest episode of ALDA\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":27567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[596,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adsummit-news","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27566"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27588,"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27566\/revisions\/27588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-digital.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}