Digital Butetown is a small-scale pilot project set up to start to address these issues for Butetown, Cardiff and other urban communities. It is supported by British Council Wales, igloo Regeneration and British Telecom.

As part of the initiative, a digital media workshop was held in October 2009 for local school students and a social media 'surgery' for existing local online network Butetown.org, led by Cardiff-based web and social media strategist Tom Beardshaw.

This follows a survey of over 1000 young people in the area in to their use of online networks and an “un-conference” of experts from Wales and the U.K, led by Jeremy Gould, former Head of Internet Communication at the U.K. Ministry of Justice, regeneration consultant and communications/service designer David Barrie and supported by Anthony Brito and Gavin Porter, administrators of Butetown.org.

The initiative was triggered by interest from local residents and school students in exploiting the power of digital media for social benefit and a broader recognition that in time, community activism, networking and local knowledge might want to be shared online.   

Digital Butetown is inspired by the commitment of Wales to digital participation, expressed in Communities 2.0, the digital broadband strategies of Cardiff City Council and work on Digital Inclusion by the Welsh Government - as well as important national and international initiatives such as Talk About Local, Digital Birmingham, Social by Social and the Connected Urban Development (CUD) programme of Cisco Systems/The Clinton Global Initiative.