Innovative use of the Internet has secured AOL Innovation in the Community Awards of £2,000 for 30 forward-thinking charities and community groups across the UK. The winning projects demonstrate the positive impact the Web can have in areas such as protecting the environment, developing new writing talent, the representation of ethnic minorities, and encouraging young volunteers.

The 30 winners of the Microsoft Community Learning Awards 2005 were announced recently. Over 400 hundred organisations applied for a grant of £2500 to fund projects helping to deliver Information Communication Technology (ICT) training to communities across the UK. All the winners had impressed the judges with their commitment, practical approach and realistic plans.

Shortlisted applicants will be contacted by the end of July 2005. If your organisation is shortlisted, you may receive a visit from a representative of the AOL Innovation in the Community Awards, which will take no longer than 90 minutes. The 30 award recipients will be announced in early August 2005 and will be invited to attend a daytime awards ceremony in London in Autumn 2005.

The lack of internet skills and experience among many UK parents is potentially harming their children's education and job prospects and could be placing them on the wrong side of a growing digital divide, says new research by academics at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Innovative project claims that it can close the Digital Divide in the 50 most deprived wards in the UK for as little as three million.

The EverybodyOnline (EOL) project is now in its third year. This report will briefly summarise the aims of EOL, its current status and will then go on to focus on the work undertaken over the past 12 months. This will include highlights, partnership working, overcoming barriers to access and will emphasise the impact that the project is having on key strategies around digital inclusion.

National challenge for region to 'go digital' A seven point action plan to close the digital divide, including a national digital challenge for a region to give universal online access to local public services by 2008, was unveiled by the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry today.

AOL UK and the national charity Citizens Online today invited applications from charities and community groups across the UK for the third annual AOL Innovation in the Community Awards, aimed at encouraging innovative use of the Internet.

Parents will be able to check up on their child's progress in school at the click of a mouse under radical plans to exploit technology to personalise education for young people published today by the Schools Minister, Derek Twigg.

Internet use is increasing seven times faster than the national average in Audley and Bignall End thanks to the EverybodyOnline project an initiative run by national charity Citizens Online and supported by BT and Microsoft.