Getting people connected across the great digital divide

Last year, entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox was made head of the clumsily-worded Digital Inclusion Taskforce (DIT), set up by Gordon Brown's government to spearhead the drive to get whole country online.

Then, in June this year, David Cameron appointed her UK Digital Champion, tasked with continuing the work she had already started.

For once, both the main political parties were singing from the same hymn sheet, or at least realised the importance of connecting as many people as possible to the ubiquitous web.

While researching her manifesto for a Networked Nation, which aims to get everyone of working age online by 2012, Ms Lane Fox discovered that more than 90 per cent of all new jobs require basic internet skills. Not only that, but about seven million adverts were posted online last year supporting the Prime Minister's assertion that "digital inclusion is essential for a modern, dynamic economy".

Race Online 2012 is part of the initiative to bring the 9.2 million adults in the UK who don't use computers, online. A host of companies have signed up to help with Google, 3 mobile, McDonald's, Job Centre Plus, the Post Office and UK online centres among those working with Race Online 2012, to make Ms Lane Fox's vision a reality, by offering training programmes and incentives for first-time users to the web.

Last October, Barnsley was chosen as a pioneering IT town to promote Get Online Day and, next Tuesday, Bridlington is among the places highlighted as part of a programme of national events marking this year's Get Online Week.

Online centres across the country are co-ordinating more than 3,000 events where experts will be on hand to show people how to use computers.

Unlike many other Government-backed initiatives that are launched amid a fanfare of pledges but fail to deliver, this is actually making a difference. Since it was launched, last year, about a million more people have access to computers and there are now more than 3,500 of these online centres nationwide based in poorer areas where computer literacy is low.

East Yorkshire is one of the most digitally excluded areas in the country; in Bridlington, as many as one in four residents are missing out on what the web has to offer.

"In today's society, it's difficult to escape the internet but there are still big pockets where people have never used it," says Helen Milner, managing director of UK Online centres.

Which is why online campaigners are taking their expertise and knowledge to the people who need it the most.

"The people who have never used the internet tend to fall into two camps – the elderly and those people in low-income households who either have no, or low qualifications," she says.

"There is a social divide as well as a geographical one, which is why we are targeting these people."

Ms Milner believes Britain is leading the way in making its citizens computer literate.

"A third of people had never used the internet but now it's less than 20 per cent and we are a world leader in this field. It's our aim to be the first country in the world where everyone uses the internet," she says.

"We've got big and small companies who have been galvanised into action. It makes sense for them because the more people that have access to computers, the more likely they are to use their services."

The benefits of being able to go online are far reaching.

"There was a study done recently which showed that people who go online are happier than those who don't. They feel like they're more in touch with what's happening in the world and the internet is an easy way of staying in contact with friends and family.

"Grandchildren don't really write letters but they will send

an email, or write on Facebook, and if you're not online,

you're missing out on these things."