One hundred young people have pledged an hour of their time to help increase the skills of Knowle residents.

By helping others to surf the internet, teaching elderly relatives to use a mobile phone and sharing more advanced skills with the business community, the South Bristol Digital Neighbourhoods (SBDN) programme aims to improve the economy of the area.

The project's first task was to find 100 people who would pass on a skill.

Celebrity Architect George Ferguson led the way by pledging his time on the condition others would do the same. He said he had been staggered by the speed at which volunteers have come forward.

He said: "I think it is vitally important to tackle digital isolation and encourage constructive use of a fantastic tool. There is a challenge to do with isolation in South Bristol, which is cut off from the centre, and digital technology gives people power to connect to all things that are available. The SBDN launch had a great buzz.

"It is an amazing achievement and really brilliant to achieve the target well within the month of launching it. It's a great demonstration of how many people want to help and the pledge gives people an easy way to do it. But it doesn't stop here. We need a lot more people to think about how they can help a neighbour, relative or friend. Now we've reached our 100 target, let's keep it going and make it 1,000!"

Volunteers of all ages each pledged skills and encouraged others to sign up.

Chanel Carter, 16, of Knowle West, said: "I'll be teaching my nan how to use her mobile phone, and I'll be showing my mum how to use the internet, so that'll probably take more than the hour I pledged. Being part of this pledge makes me feel important, it's me teaching someone else, not someone else teaching me. I've already got lots of friends teaching their friends and family."

Michael Smith, 24, of Knowle West, said: "I will be teaching people how to use Photoshop to create images. I've gained a vast amount of skills over the years and for me not to share them would be a waste. It feels great to be part of 100 people volunteering their time to teach digital skills."

Dylan Martlew, SBDN strategic co-ordinator, said: "Digital mentoring works at all levels from young people teaching older people basic skills, to senior executives hosting a meeting to discuss specific topics. We want to raise skill levels for everyone in South Bristol. The next step is to organise safe environments for mentoring, to match volunteers' skills to people's training needs. We will be linking this in with other community work we are doing."