Diversity on television is not just a black and white issue
The fact that men outnumber women two to one on television, that women disappear almost completely after the age of 50, that there are hardly any disabled presenters on air of any age, or that black men are only listened to about the industry’s lack of diversity once they’ve become really famous in America; none of it is all that funny. Actors moaning about racism and women about sexism – none of it is new. After a campaign led by Sir Lenny Henry, the BBC pledged to increase the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic people on air by more than 40% as long ago as June 2014, as well as to almost double the number of senior managers from those groups who work at the corporation by 2020. Women have long made up 50% of the population, but 40% of Londoners are now from an ethnic minority, and other minorities – whether disabled, transgender or just other – are making their voices heard. And where better to get your voice heard than in the media?
The tech industry needs to stop being so dunderheaded about technology for the elderly. For the past decade, the industry has been laser-focused on transforming life and work for one rocketing market segment: 25-year-olds with money. It has routinely avoided, underestimated or remained ignorant about the world's other rocketing market segment: old people and the family members who take care of them.Combine technology such as Hearbuds with GPS and facial recognition technology, and older people could get reminders in their ears about where they are and who they are talking to. Driverless cars should be a giant leap for older people. To stop driving is to give up the freedom to go out to lunch or visit a friend at any time; that limitation ends with driverless cars. You could be 100, nearly blind and have the reflexes of a Galápagos tortoise, but you could whistle for your Google car and tell it to take you to the nearest speakeasy. Put these developments together, and it's possible to make the experience of getting old radically different a decade from now – as different as it is to be young in 2016 compared with being young in the dark ages of 2006, pre-iPhone. Imagine existing as a teenager when all you could do on a phone was text.
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