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Telstra Offers $3 Million To Get Seniors Hooked on SMS |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Thursday, 16 August 2007 |
Telstra has launched an A$3 million grant program to help older
Australians use mobile and internet technology to improve communication
and social interaction.
The A$1 million a year grant will be given to community organisations such as bowls clubs and
gardening groups to run programs that equip their members with new
skills such as connecting with other seniors online, making video calls
or sending text messages.
Telstra Group Managing Director, David Moffatt was quoted in a statement saying that the quality
of life for seniors was strongly influenced by social connectivity and
that technology could play a vital part in meeting new people,
discovering new interests and developing new hobbies, which contribute
to healthy lifestyles.
"Telstra Connected Seniors has been created to help older
Australians learn about new technology so they can confidently use it
to keep in contact with family, friends and loved ones," Moffatt
said.
The comany points to a statistics from a variety of research and
internal sources that show two thirds (66%) of people aged over 60 own
a mobile phone but they
only use their mobiles occasionally compared to younger age groups.
Only a few have sent an SMS or picture message, but 35 per cent of people over 60 want to use technologies to
communicate with their friends and families. However, they claim they feel
uneasy about how to use new technology.
720,000 people over 60 years have home computers and 60 per cent of
them regularly use the internet. The most popular things they do online
are sending email, browsing news sites and researching hobby interests
such as genealogy or gardening. Less
than one per cent of the 60 crowd ever ventures into social networking
sites like MySpace, Facebook or BigPond BigBlog, compared to 10 per
cent of under 20 year olds, says Telstra,.
"We believe this new grant program will be very popular with
seniors as education was marked as one of the top four issues of
interest and concern to those aged over 50," said Moffat.
Clubs and community groups with a membership base comprised
primarily of seniors can apply for grants for money, equipment and
educational materials. The first round of funding for Telstra Connected Seniors is now open
and closes on 14 September 2007. Applicants will
run their own educational activities, using materials and resources
provided by Telstra through a Telstra website www.telstraseniors.com.au.
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