More than £500,000 of lottery funding will be used to help the one in five people who are digitally excluded or lack internet access in Scotland get to grips with modern technology.

Charity workers are to be trained as their 'digital champions,' tasked with getting them connected in the internet age.

The money will be used to provide support for some of the 800,000 adults who are estimated to lack basic digital skills.

Target groups include people with disabilities, young adults seeking work, pensioners and also the 77 per cent of people offline who claim lack of interest is the main factor putting them off.

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisation (SCVO) has received £528,219 from the Big Lottery Fund (Big) to help more people connect with the online world by training hundreds of people in charities across Scotland to pass on their skills.

The programme is part of a UK-wide Big digital skills programme One Digital, developed in conjunction with partners including Age UK.

While poverty can also be a barrier, those behind the scheme say people who are not online yet are becoming harder to engage and increasingly need the kind of personal long-term support which will be provided by digital champions.

Beth Murphy, One Digital Project Manager with SCVO said the skills people needed include managing information, communicating effectively, creating their own digital resources, solving problems using digital technologies and making payments, which can often be cheaper for those who can use the internet.

"For some people lack of access is to do with either infrastructure or not having access to devices, particularly in the Highlands and Islands and some other parts of Scotland," she said.

"Other people don't understand the benefits the internet could have for them."

Kim Foden, 65, has been involved in printing since she worked heating hot metal for the typesetters who worked for her father when he owned the works which printed the Orkney Herald.

But she was overtaken by technology and only recently learned how to use a tablet to make digital recordings of memories of 'old codgers' around the archipelago, as part of a project with the centre for Nordic Studies, supported by One Digital.

"I had never used a touch screen before but we were recording cultural histories of island people , and photographing them and logging their locations," she said. "Now I'm aiming to pass on what I've learned to others."

Former refugee Jamal Adam, of Glasgow, has attended Maryhill Hub community centre with his wife took courses to gain the European Computer Driving License.

He said: "I never had the skills to use a computer because although I had a degree in geology from my home country in Sudan nobody there had computers. Now I have a computer in my home and me and my wife both hope to find jobs", he said.

SCVO will work with organisations in every local authority area to run a programme of training and support for over 600 charities and third sector organisations.

Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop said: “Getting online is more and more important to let everyone in Scotland take part in society, as well as using digital services, product and social networks.

“But nearly one in five Scots still don’t have internet access, and 16 per cent don’t have the basic skills they need to make the most of going online. These digital inequalities mirror and reinforce the social inequalities in Scotland."

Investing in those left behind by the digital revolution will support a better economy and better social inclusion, she said.

Jackie Killeen Scotland Director at Big Lottery Fund said: “As all aspect of our lives, including key services from the DVLA to the Universal Credit system, are switching to online provision by default those on the wrong side of the digital divide find themselves with more barriers to accessing the support they need."