About Us

Digital Skills IGO was started to support the members of the u3a Trusts groups.  There are local groups usually referred to as u3as and there is Interest Groups Online often referred to as IGO.  We created the Digital Skills group on IGO as a way to provide technical and user support for all u3a Trust members not just those of IGO,  however the memberships are separate so to benefit from the support provided by the group you need to be a member of IGO in addition to any u3a you may be a member of.

The Digital Skills IGO group and this site were founded by Mike Hanson aided by David Blyth, you kind find out more about us below.

Our goal is to bring together people who  have experience with Information Technology and the Digital World that are willing to help others and share the skills and experience with those who aren’t so confident or competent in these worlds.  More and more some form of computer based technology is becoming essential in this modern age be it a smart phone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer.  So many services are only available from a one of these devices, but not everyone embraced technology in the early days as Mike, David and other like minded individuals did and it can be a struggle to get to grips with something that is constantly moving forward.  We want to change that and help by providing support, be it answering questions via this site, writing Blog posts or even attending u3a meetups  to help members.  We hope to build a community where everyone helps each other become more confident and competent with technology and enable them to get the most ouf of this Digital Age.

I am a retired IT Professional with over 30 years experience working in many different roles through my career.  I was among the first 10 people to be certified both as Systems Engineer and a Software Architect by Microsoft.  I am passionate about IT and have a tendancy to take things apart to understand how they work.

I worked my way up through the ranks to hold positions as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and IT Director, but all this management stuff took me further and further away from the hands on work, particularly writing code, which was my real passion.  I am much better at using the logical side of my brain than the creative side, but I have created some great software in my time.  Twice in my career I worked for McLaren on the software F1 teams use to monitor the cars.

In my spare time I stay fit by cycling, swimming or on my Elyptical Trainer when the weather is against me.  I also race online with others including David using simulator software like Assetto Corsa Competizione and the official F1 Game.

I still write code, having created a few applications to help us get more out of the data generated by the racing simulators.

As part of my preparation for this group I completed the Digital Champion program over at Digital Wings. and earned the Digital Champion badge.