Computers for Pupils 'Launch'

I've been working on it for one and a half years and we finally 'launched' Computers for Pupils today, the initiative to put computers into the homes of disadvantaged kids. It's been a long time coming but we got there. It was with a mixture of relief and trepidation that I headed up to the London Hilton Metropole Hotel on Edgware Road - relief that day finally arrived and trepidation that something would go very publicly wrong. And nothing went too wrong at all, even my stint on a Q&A panel in the afternoon where I got lots of questions about funding went ok (I always get loads of questions about funding). Phew!

I left home at 6.45am (an unheard of hour unless a holiday is involved) to get to the hotel to check all the arrangements in the main conference room and the various seminar rooms we'd hired. The aim was to make the day very practical for the various local authority and school representatives attending, lots of small seminars for discussion and learning, but this, of course, made the logistics more complicated. I'm incredibly grateful to the various people who gave up their time to prepare for and lead the seminars - I've been very lucky in the people we've been working with and I must do something in return for them. We even had some school kids on the stage telling us how important home access to computers and the internet is and they were excellent - a highlight of the day.

But it was worth it in the end. The mix of a speeches, seminar sessions and Q&A seems to have worked. The feedback we've already had is almost entirely positive so I'm pleased about that. We still all need to follow through of course - a nice event is one thing but I want to count the computers that go into the homes of disdvantaged kids under this initiative. I hope going without lunch was worth it!