The Silver Infocomm Initiative is a three-year programme, from 2007 to 2010, that aims to bridge the digital divide among senior citizens through addressing their vast differences in educational background, language and infocomm competencies. Training in digital lifestyle skills will be offered to 30,000 senior citizens so that they can stay economically active and independent.
In the first year, IDA leveraged on the heightened awareness for active ageing due to the Active Aging Festival and co-organised the inaugural Silver Infocomm Day with the RSVP Singapore - The Organisation of Senior Volunteers, or RSVP Singapore in short, in 2007. This event consisted of a series of talks and workshops on a variety of topics like ‘How to choose a broadband package for your home’, ‘Setting up of wired and wireless home networking’ and many more. In 2008, held over two Saturdays in November, the Silver Infocomm Day was co-organised by IDA, RSVP and Singapore Polytechnic. It continued to offer infocomm tips in both English and Mandarin on topics such as ‘blogging’ and ‘capturing photos on mobile phones’.
Eight senior-friendly and conveniently located IT learning hubs, called the Silver Infocomm Junctions (SIJs), will be set up around Singapore from 2007 to 2010. The SIJs offer affordable infocomm access and follow up tutorials to provide more in-depth learning for the senior citizens.
The current three SIJs are located at:
RSVP Singapore
#08-02 Junction 8 Shopping Centre
Tel: 6259-0802
Marine Parade Family Service Centre
#01-227 Block 53 Marine Terrace
Singapore 440053
Tel: 6445-0100
Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC) Bukit Panjang
#01-22 Block 270 Bangkit Road
Singapore 670270
Tel: 6465-4411
IDA will also tap on a ready pool of infocomm-savvy senior citizens, who have the aptitude for infocomm, to act as course instructors or ambassadors to impart their infocomm knowledge to their peers apart from the experienced trainers. The non-infocomm users will thus feel more comfortable in asking and learning more about infocomm with someone who has gone through similar learning experience.
A bi-lingual, easy-to-understand infocomm curriculum will be available from November 2008 for senior citizens to learn basic infocomm and digital lifestyle skills. For instance, make video-calls over the Internet, utilise Wireless@SG access, and activate accessibility features on their computers, amongst other things. SIJs will be making use of this curriculum to offer Infocomm training courses.
The Silver Infocomm Initiative is one of the key programmes under the iN2015 Masterplan’s digital inclusion initiative that aims to develop a digitally-inclusive society.