Press Releases

Budapest, May 27, 2009 15:00

Magyar Telekom will hold a two-day event called Digital Bridge Fest on May 29-30, 2009 with the involvement of several small localities of Baranya county. During the event, which will attract a rich array of fringe programs too, Magyar Telekom volunteers will teach the residents of the small localities to use the Internet, in an effort to help close the digital divide.

On May 29 Királyegyháza, Nagyharsány and Sellye, and on May 30 Kővágószőlős, Máza and Orfű will host the Digital Bridge Fest. At each venue there will be Internet presentations and personalized Internet training. These events will be accompanied by quizzes for children. The singer, musician and choreographer Péter Novák will moderate a talent hunt of the Kulturpart.hu project open to young or old alike. At the event's first-day venues the staffs of South Transdanubian Regional Labor Center and the Pécs Regional Training Center will show the visitors what job search opportunities the Internet offers and will also counsel people on finding a job with the help of the Internet. The WiFi Village program, launched by the Foundation for Internet Rollout, will also be a stakeholder of the Digital Bridge Fest events, namely the Internet job exchange and labor counseling program.

The WiFi Village program also brings cheap used computers and wireless (wifi) Internet connection to disadvantaged people, including Roma youths living in the less developed North Hungary and South Transdanubian regions. Thanks to the program, already some 2000 homes in 115 localities are connected to the broadband Internet offering an efficient tool for accessing information, learning and job search. Magyar Telekom builds the infrastructure as a support and provides the access free of charge till the end of 2009.

As Hungary's leading infocommunications provider, Magyar Telekom has for years been supporting initiatives aimed at establishing an information society, closing the digital divide as well as promoting digital literacy and the mass use of the Internet. A separate program involving small localities operates in the framework of the Digital Bridge initiative, launched in 2004, in order to close the digital divide by showing the residents of small localities the uses of Internet, how it can bring together people living far apart and how it can solve the problems of everyday life.

At the venues of the Digital Bridge Small Locality program, typically in towns with fewer than 3000 inhabitants, the volunteers of Magyar Telekom provide effective, customized Internet training, and organize quiz games for children to expand their knowledge. The participants may use the Internet free of charge, they will be given professional answers to any questions of personal interest or else may search for the answers on the web together with their instructors.

The upcoming six events will be the 115th to 120th in the Digital Bridge Small Locality program. In the past five years more than 250 Magyar Telekom volunteers participated in the diffusion of knowledge on the Internet. The jubilee, 100th event took place in July 2008 when the Digital Bridge program returned to its very first venue in Bakonszeg, Hajdú-Bihar county.