I took this photo on Monday night at the Age UK Internet Champion of the Year awards, something I was lucky enough to be asked to be a judge for. Awards were presented to the four wonderful people in the photo, and they all had very inspiring stories. I had a lovely chat to Brenda O’Mulloy, who you can see on the left, who first got a laptop after her husband died as she felt quite isolated. Amazingly, she had also been tracked down on Facebook by an American soldier who had stayed with her family during WW2 who she had lost touch with – and she was surprised everyone aged 82 wasn’t on Facebook!

The awards were presented by June Whitfield who said that to use the internet you need the “3 Ps” – patience, perserverance and practice – and these four champions certainly demonstrated that in spades! In the spirit of our new campaign,  New Year, new online you! I think the fourth “P” could stand for public services, which can help make a lot of things like learning about pensions or finding out about jobs a lot easier. I might be shoe-horning this reference in slightly, but you can read more about the campaign here and I’ll be blogging about it soon so do forgive the tenuous link. 

Congratulations to all the winners and runners up – I’m sure they will go on to inspire lots more people to get started online.