News and views

Volunteers, community organisations, libraries, housing providers, businesses and many more responded enthusiastically to our call to help older people and less confident users to get online during one of the biggest digital inclusion campaigns of the year, Spring Online in association with Carphone Warehouse.

The Post Office and Fujitsu have come together in a bid to help more people to get online as part of the national Spring Online campaign.

The World Wide Web may be 25 years old this month, but the UK’s digital divide perseveres, with nearly six million older people who have never been online. Spring Online in association with Carphone Warehouse aims to change all that, with hundreds of free internet taster events being held across the UK next week (March 31 – April 4) to help people take their first steps online.

'For the past 25 years, Carphone Warehouse has witnessed a considerable evolution in technical trends.  Advances in technology have emerged that have not only changed our work and social habits, they have fundamentally changed how we live our lives.

Four more housing providers have joined the Digital Champions Network for Housing (DCN4H) helping thousands more residents to get and stay online.

streetlife.com, the local social network, is supporting Digital Unite’s campaign to help tackle digital exclusion through local community events.

Following the success of last year’s Spring Online campaign, Streetlife is once again encouraging local people to help others to achieve a lasting use of the internet.

Here at Digital Unite we’ve been helping people with improving their digital literacy for around 17 years and in that time we’ve read and written a lot about digital skills, digital exclusion and everything in-between.

So, let’s cut to the chase and reflect briefly on where we are now in the challenge to get the nation ‘digital by default’?

Our experience suggests the following:

We are proud to be working with Hyde Housing, a partner of our new Digital Champions Network for Housing, who has extended their digital inclusion programme with face-to-face home tuition for residents in central and east Kent.

After the success of last year’s partnership, Digital Unite has announced that Carphone Warehouse will again act as Headline Partner for Spring Online, one of the UK’s leading digital inclusion campaigns which will run from 31^st March – 4^th April 2014.

CrossCountry is the largest rail network in Great Britain, linking major towns and cities like Cardiff, York, Edinburgh, Reading, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol and Manchester. As a train company we don’t operate any stations so often our only contact with our customers before they get on board is through our website, mobile site and app.

Enlisting 102 Digital Champions to the Affinity Sutton Get Connected project and seeing the programme shortlisted in the TPAS Awards 2013 have been two great reasons to celebrate this month.

Digital Unite has announced that CrossCountry will act as a Supporting Sponsor for Spring Online, one of the nation’s largest, annual digital inclusion campaigns which runs between 31 March – 4 April 2014.

This year, the seventh annual Get online campaign takes place from 14 20 October. Run by Tinder Foundation and their network of UK Online Centres, the campaign encourages everyone in Britain to get digital for the week.

There are still 7.2 million people in the UK who have never used the internet before, and many more who don’t have the skills to make the most of online life.

A new Digital Champions Network for Housing has been launched today (Thursday 19 September 2013) to help housing providers support their residents to get online and extend their digital skills ahead of the introduction of Universal Credit.

Congratulations to Joyce Preston of Pulham Market in Norfolk who won this year’s Spring Online prize draw, winning £100 of high street vouchers for herself and £100 in vouchers for her Spring Online event holder, The Pennoyer Centre in Pulham St Mary.

Since we relaunched our website last year we’ve seen the number of our visitors go from strength to strength and can now proudly boast a monthly audience size of almost 130,000, that’s about one visitor every 20 seconds!

On Tuesday 16 July our Business Development Manager, Kathy Valdes, took to the podium at the Digital Inclusion in Austere Times event at the glorious BT Tower.

Attended by around 90 representatives from housing associations and local authorities, Kathy showcased the ways in which Digital Unite is helping organisations to meet the challenges and opportunities of the Digital by Default agenda.  

To see the full presentation click here.

We've just launched a new range of online courses to help people support others with using the internet to manage money and search and apply for jobs online.

Just over 7 million people have still never used the internet* and around 16 million people aged over 15 don’t have ‘basic online skills’**. With digital skills being an increasingly essential part of everyday life the need to support others with getting online has never been greater.

After 17 years in the driving seat I am taking a year off from the marvels that are Digital Unite to go sailing with my family. It feels like a rather momentous decision but I am very sure it is also a very good one not just for me but also for Digital Unite.

Carphone Warehouse, Headline Sponsor of Spring Online encouraged employees to host their own Spring Online events in stores across the nation.  Each of the events sought to help older customers get to grips with tablets and smartphones – further conveying Carphone Warehouse’s vision to ‘make people’s lives better through technology.’ 

On Tuesday 11 June 2013, broadcaster and journalist Joan Bakewell presented awards to six local organisations that helped older people and others to get online as part of Spring Online 2013 in association with Carphone Warehouse.

"I attended the taster days and now I'm on the computer every night. It's so exciting to be able to talk with my son in Sweden and see him."

Three organisations have been shortlisted for the Spring Online Best Event Awards 2013 in association with Carphone Warehouse which will be presented by Joan Bakewell on Tuesday 11 June 2013.

An estimated 20,000 older people and other less confident users were given their first taste of computers, the internet and other digital technology last month as part of Digital Unite’s award-winning Spring Online campaign in association with Carphone Warehouse.

Over 1,000 free digital taster events were held across the UK in a wide variety of places such as libraries, schools, housing schemes, community centres and village halls and even a cinema, pub, street market and candle factory.

One Spring Online event holder, David Armstrong, wrote to us to tell us how delighted he was about his Spring Online event at Putney Methodist Church, where members of the Church got together with the local Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.