Search engine seeks Ireland's No 1 silver surfer

COMPUTER GIANT Google and charity Age Action are looking for computer whizz kids “of a certain age” to enter their annual “Silver Surfer” awards for computer use.

Google and the charity for positive ageing are seeking nominations, asking people to put forward anyone they know over 50, who has made technology a part of their daily lives.

It is the third year of the awards, won last year by 95-year-old Evan Hassell from Dublin.

He received the award for his avid use of the internet and of his mobile phone.

Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte said the “view that older people can’t catch up with new technology is one of the great myths”.

Mr Rabbitte said it was important that people who were excluded from these skills when they were younger, should enjoy the benefits of technology in their lives and this was part of the value of the awards.

The Department of Communications through its Benefit 3 programme offers digital training grants for community and voluntary organisations and will help train some 30,000 people this year in computer skills.

Mr Rabbitte said technology had taken over to the extent that traditional letter writing through the postal system had dropped by 20 per cent since 2000 and it was important that older people should be able to access the increasing number of Government services that are now online.

Chief executive of Age Action Robin Webster described older computer users as “time lords” who were showing how “life could be better for many more people. Many people don’t appreciate the opportunity there is” through computer skills.

Google’s social action manager Sinead Gibney highlighted “how isolating it is for people who don’t use the internet” particularly when “bigger chunks of our lives have moved on to the internet”.

Further information is available at ageaction.ie/silversurfer or telephone 01-4756989