TalkTalk have long been a partner of Tinder Foundation, and one we’ve always been very proud to work with. Chief Executive Dido Harding has been a vocal supporter of digital inclusion, and the work of Tinder Foundation, and I’ve always welcomed the advice she has provided us as we’ve grown as an organisation and expanded our work to support almost 2 million people to improve their digital skills.

Recently, we’ve been building a strategic partnership with TalkTalk that we think will have a real impact on supporting digitally excluded people to improve their skills, and particularly help them to keep themselves safe online.

Through the UK online centres network, we’ve supported over 250,000 people to improve their digital skills just this year, and so we’ve got a pretty good understanding of what people are worried about, what’s holding them back, and the barriers and concerns we need to tackle. We see so many people who are really worried about being able to keep themselves safe online, and who are being held back from experiencing all of the positives about the online world due to their concerns about online safety and security.

Next week is Get Online Week, and there will be thousands of organisations all over the country supporting people to improve their basic digital skills through tackling some of the barriers people face to getting online, and by showing them how the internet can be made relevant for them. We’re delighted that, thanks to our partnership with TalkTalk, we’re able to provide these organisations with a new online learning tool that will help them to break down some of these barriers, and to help people learn how to keep themselves safe and secure online.

The course will be hosted on our Learn My Way platform, recently relaunched, which contains a whole host of courses to help people get to grips with the skills they need to get on in a digital world. The website, and all of the courses on it (including this one) have been designed in consultation with the people who will benefit from it, and the new internet safety course is a great addition to it.

This is just one small bit of a wider partnership with TalkTalk, which will ensure we can reach many more people, and support them to use the internet safely, without worry. As a small charity with big ambitions, the support of an organisation like TalkTalk is crucial to helping us to expand our impact, and so we’re delighted to continue working with them to develop new solutions.