Derry City Council Launches CultureTECH Festival

The Mayor of Derry Councillor Brenda Stevenson has launched a campaign in partnership with the CultureTECH Festival, to recruit 1,000 "digital champions" across the North West region.

The campaign has been developed in support of the Go ON NI initiative, which is aiming to address a lack of digital skills across Northern Ireland.

Derry City Council says over 50 community organisations have so far signed up and are committed to recruiting over 1,000 participants to take part in a series of free training workshops during the CultureTECH week in September.

The council said more than 345,000 adults in Northern Ireland currently lack basic online skills needed to send and receive email, use a search engine, browse the internet and complete online forms.

Councillor Brenda Stevenson said: "This partnership approach will supercharge our existing digital activity making it easier for people to build their digital skills and confidence, with the aim of reducing the number of people offline. Our mission is to make this city the most digitally capable place in the world to help boost our economy and strengthen our communities. I would urge everyone in the public, private & voluntary sectors to play their part in tackling digital exclusion and join the campaign."

Tristan Wilkinson, Acting CEO, Go ON UK added: "Our research has suggested that nearly a quarter of adults in Northern Ireland lack basic online skills - that means no emails to friends and family, no social media and no applying for jobs, booking tickets, or accessing government services.

"Go ON UK was established to help address these issues on a national scale and earlier this year we launched our Go ON NI campaign, the response to which has been fantastic. We are delighted to be working with CultureTECH and Derry City Council, and believe the formal signing of the Digital Skills Charter and the recruitment of 1,000 digital champions will put the city at the forefront of this nationwide effort."

(IT/JP)