Race Online 2012, the body led by Martha Lane Fox with the aim of getting all of Britain online, has announced plans for a force of 100,000 volunteers to persuade the last nine million citizens to take their first click.
The Digital Champion campaign aims to get 100,000 people, at work and in their spare time, to help others get online, using cheap recycled PCs starting at £95, which are available through the Race Online scheme. Around 1,000 organisations, including service providers and borough councils have promised to support the programme
Of the nine million people still not using the net, around 7.3 million are over-55, so the campaign is focusing on turning older people who don’t use the Internet into so-called “silver surfers”.
Lane Fox has said she hopes to halve Britain’s “non-line” population by the 2012 Olympics, the notional deadline of the Race Online project.
Martha Lane Fox has been leading an online review of the government’s Directgov portal, aimed at simplifying it for new users. As a step towards this, the government has unveiled alpha.gov, an early prototype version of what a single government website might look like. Users can enter their postcode and search for any government service, getting localised information back.
The Race Online campaign was first announced in 2010 by Lane Fox and prime minister David Cameron. It has had minimal government funding in the past, which Lane Fox has said is not a drawback.
“There is no money and we don’t need it to make a big stride forward,” Lane Fox said in August 2010. “There is a massive amount you can do. You can make big inroads into that 10 million number without having to spend money.”
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Unless Government address the problem there is with online fraudsters stealing account details having more elderly people access the web could well be a disaster.
Fortunately there now is an alternative and safer way to order on line by Paypoint/Cash Net. This system allows you to assemble on line order then print out the details such as items, how many, your name and address for delivery, then you print out the bar-coded order which is then printed out and processed by any PayPoint outlet of which there are a great many, See link for further details. http://carl-agpcuk.livejournal.com/5434.html
This way you don’t give your credit card details on line and you can pay in cash which may help on low orders.
Regretfully government isn’t doing enough to make sure the public know of this safer securer system. Also many on line websites seem unaware of this facility which could boost sales if applied more.
Signed Carl Barron
Chairman of agpcuk