The e-envoy visited the North East last week to push the region's
low internet use. James Rogers reports
T ap-dancing pensioners and a photo shoot with former England
football star Peter Beardsley are all in a day's work for e-envoy
Andrew Pinder, judging by his visit to the North East last
week.
An Age Concern centre may seem an unlikely place to find the man
spearheading the UK's e-revolution, but a hall full of tap-dancing
pensioners was just one of the stops on the e-envoy's hectic tour
of Newcastle.
Despite recent speculation that his role is to be cut back as part
of a Cabinet Office shake-up, Pinder is adamant that the Office of
the E-Envoy will continue to co-ordinate the UK's drive to become
the world's leading e-economy.
In addition to boosting the high-tech profile of UK plc, Pinder's
role involves helping bridge the UK's digital divide, hence the
visit to a part of the country where internet use is well below the
national average.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, between
October 2001 and September 2002, 36% of households in the North
East had internet access, compared with 41% in the North West and
50% in the South East.
The trip was timed to coincide with a month-long government
initiative to boost public use of the internet in Newcastle, prior
to the launch of a national campaign to breach the digital divide
in May.
Pinder, who worked as a tax inspector in the city in the 1970s,
said visiting local communities is his favourite aspect of the
e-envoy's role. "I usually have to be dragged away from places on
days like today," he said.
For this reason, the 55-year-old former Citibank executive found
himself sharing centre stage with a local women's choir and former
Newcastle United star Beardsley at West Walker Primary School in
Newcastle.
The school, complete with hordes of children, the local mayor, and
an array of camera crews, was hosting the latest stage of
EverybodyOnline, a joint BT and government initiative to encourage
people in disadvantaged areas to use the internet.
In his speech, Pinder highlighted the vital role of IT in the
modern workplace. "In order to exist in the working environment you
have to know about computers and getting online," he said.
In addition to West Walker School, Pinder visited a UK Online
Centre in Byker and a cybercafe at Newcastle's Age Concern centre
as part of a gruelling schedule which also took in meetings with
key IT firms in the North East. This included a trip to the
headquarters of accountancy software firm Sage and a tour of BT's
broadband call centre in Longbenton.
Pinder was appointed e-envoy in 2000, and he believes that,
overall, the UK has been making better use of the internet in the
past couple of years.
"We have got many more people online than two years ago - we are
doing well with e-business and there is a higher percentage of UK
businesses trading online than their US counterparts," he said. "We
have managed to raise the profile of online transactions and having
an internet presence."
Pinder was set to follow his trip to Newcastle with a visit to
Brazil, where he was scheduled to make the keynote speech at a
Latin-American conference. But he admitted that he gets the
greatest pleasure from visiting grass-roots IT projects.
"This is the best part of my job - meeting real people in a real
community," he said.