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Digitally empowered Europe

Unite-IT 2nd Annual Report

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© UniteIT, 2014

This project has been funded with support

from the European Commission. This publication

reflects the views only of the author, and

the Commission cannot be held responsible

for any use which may be made of the information

contained therein.

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Digitally empowered Europe - Unite-IT 2nd Annual Report

Deliverable Title D7.2 Digitally empowered Europe Unite-IT 2nd Annual Report

Version 5

Deliverable Lead Fundația EOS – Educating for an Open Society Romania

Related Work package WP 4

Author(s) Gabriela Barna, Diana Gligor, Cornelia Popescu

Contributor(s) Peter Palvolgyi, Zarko Cizmar, Laurence Leseigneur, Mara

Jakobsone, Ivan Stojilovic, Gordana Stojilovic, Gabriela

Ruseva, Laurentiu Bunescu

Duration 36 months

Project coordinator DEmNET

Digitally empowered Europe Unite-IT 2nd Annual Report

The need of overcoming digital divide to allow all citizens to freely and fully express

themselves and exploit their rights as citizens and individuals is widely recognized, and

digital competence is one of the identified key competences for lifelong learning. Several

activities and projects have been carried out in the field, supported by national policy

makers, and by the European Commission as well. The adoption of the Digital Agenda in

2010, put forward the effort by the member states and the EC to actively contribute to make

digital society a reality for all.

This report provides an overview of the activities, programmes, events and initiatives

carried out by the Unite-IT project consortium partners or associate partners within the

Unite-IT digital inclusion network. This report covers approximatively 12 months, starting

in October 2013 to September 2014 and culminating with the Telecentre-Europe Annual

Summit and 2nd Unite-IT Annual Conference held at the end of September 2014 in Zagreb,

Croatia.

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Digitally empowered Europe Unite-IT 2nd Annual Report

CHAPTER I │An overview of e-Skills and digital inclusion policy in Europe

1.1. Introduction

In the 21st century digital skills are needed for adequate participation in an increasing

number of areas of life – from working through personal development to active

participation in society. The crucial role of intermediary organizations to equip

European citizens with adequate digital competences, together with other key

competences like learning to learn, interpersonal skills or a sense of initiative is

increasingly recognised by European networks and institutions. A survey

commissioned to Telecentre-Europe by the Institute for Prospective Technological

Studies of the European Commission (IPTS) revealed last year that in EU27 there

were around 250,000 operating e-Inclusion organisations (i.e. one every 2 000

inhabitants) devoted to prepare Europeans to make a purposeful use of Internet for

their socio-economic progress.

Today more than ever, collaboration is recognised as the most effective way to achieve

excellence. Based on this approach Telecentre Europe’s main objective since the

beginning has been to create a community where our members do not feel alone in

their mission to spread the benefits of the digital society to all citizens. Today, seven

years after its birth as a European network, Telecentre Europe unites 50 formal

member organisations and hundreds of informal partners working together under

common values and the shared ambition of promoting digital inclusion and

empowerment for full participation of all Europeans in the 21st century society.

Telecentre Europe’s aspiration to become the meeting point of e-Inclusion actors in

Europe has been materialised in the UNITE-IT network. UNITE-IT is a pan-

European platform for a wide community of stakeholders and supporters.

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Professionals from various fields – teachers, trainers, academics, social workers, ICT

specialists, business executives and policy makers – can count on a devoted space

where they can keep up with latest policy trends and best practices, learn from peers

or share their expertise. Facilitated access to funding opportunities, participation in

exclusive webinars or meeting with the European e-Inclusion community at UNITE-

IT Annual Conference are just some of the benefits that every UNITE-IT member

enjoys.

1.2. e-Skills and inclusion initiatives/policies in Europe

The Education and Training Monitor is an annual series that reports on the evolution

of education and training systems across Europe, bringing together the latest

quantitative and qualitative data, recent technical reports and studies, plus policy

documents and developments. The Education and Training Monitor supports the

implementation of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education

and training (ET 2020) by strengthening the evidence-base and by linking it more

closely to the broader Europe 2020 strategy and the country-specific

recommendations (CSRs). The Commission published the third annual edition of the

Education and Training Monitor in November 2014.

The Education and Training Monitor

2014 is accompanied by twenty-eight

country reports, as well as a

visualisation tool to evaluate the

performance and progress of the

Member States in relation to the ET

2020 targets.

The website of the JRC's Centre for Research on Education and Lifelong Learning link

outside the EC domain provides additional indicators that were used throughout the

monitoring exercise. These additional indicators are part of the Joint Assessment

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Framework (JAF); a tool that enables a consistent and transparent monitoring for all

the Member States.

Figures in the latest edition of the Education and Training Monitor, published by the

European Commission, reaffirm the serious gap in digital skills among people in

Europe. Combining data from several studies, the report provides an overview of the

state of education, training and skills in Europe and points to measures that can be

taken to address the problem. Across Europe, a lack of digital skills resulted in poor

performance in studies of abilities. According to results from the OECD’s Survey of

Adult Skills, referenced in the report, “more than one in four adults in the thirteen

Member States that participated in the problem solving module of the survey had very

low to no skills in problem solving in technology-rich environments.” Among young

people aged 16 to 24, the report continues to say that ‘only half of this younger age

group have an above-basic level in problem solving in a technology rich environment.”

The report emphasizes the need for sustained investment in education, and policy on

education and training to tackle this skills gap: “For individuals to thrive in a modern

and evolving labor market, education needs to equip people with key transversal

competences. Policy efforts regarding digital competences are to be

strengthened.”

The Commission Communication on "Taking stock of the Europe 2020 strategy

for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth" sets out an analysis of what has

happened in the framework of the Europe 2020 strategy until middle 2014. The

Commission has not drawn policy conclusions nor made policy recommendations at

this stage. Given the enormity of the change that the EU, its Member States, cities and

regions have undergone as a result of the crisis, the Commission considers it necessary

to launch an EU-wide consultation of all stakeholders on the lessons to be learned and

on the main factors that should shape the next stages of the EU's post-crisis growth

strategy.

The Council Recommendation on the validation of non-formal and informal learning

invites Member States to have in place, by 2018, arrangements for such validation

and to allow citizens to obtain qualifications on the basis of validated learning

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outcomes. Validation can also support the assessment and certification of

competences acquired through digital learning.

Results from the 2014 Eurobarometer survey on the European Area of Skills and

Qualifications make it very apparent that there is a lack of awareness of the tools and

frameworks amongst the potential end users. Less than 10% say they know the level

of the European Qualifications Framework to which their qualifications correspond,

and just a little over 10% have heard of the European Qualifications Framework.

Adult participation in learning is captured by an ET 2020 benchmark that aims for

15% of 25 to 64 year-olds to participate in formal or non-formal learning by 2020. The

figure below, as extracted from Eurostat shows that although some countries are

leading the way, there is still need for resourcing, funding and commitment for most

European countries:

According to the Digital Agenda Scoreboard 2014 results, the number of internet

users in the population continues to increase, with 72% of the EU population

reporting that they used the internet at least weekly in 2013.For most people, use of

the internet is a daily activity, with 62% of EU citizens reporting using it daily in 2013.

Use by disadvantaged people also continues to rise; with 57% reporting using the

internet at least weekly in 2013. This steady increase in internet use of the EU

population suggests that the Digital Agenda targets on internet use will be met by their

target date of 2015.

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In terms of reviewing the some of the most important figures related to digital skills

and e-inclusion the reality shows some progress but still a lot more needs to be done,

especially for the disadvantaged group (unemployed, low educated, retired, inactive,

etc). Reaching the most vulnerable and disadvantaged is becoming more resource

intensive and requires the active participation of grass-roots small community

organisations to help bring the remaining 23% of the European population on board

of the information society.

47% of the EU population has

insufficient digital skills, 23% has

none at all

64% of disadvantaged people

(aged 55-74) have an insufficient

level of digital skills, 38% have no

digital skills.

39% of the EU workforce has

insufficient digital skills, 14% has

no digital skills at all.

40%

45%

50%

55%

60%

65%

70%

75%

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Internet use in the EU: Daily Internet use in the EU: Weekly

Daily and weekly use of internet in the EU (% of population)

Source: EUROSTAT

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The main findings of the Digital Economy and Society Index can be summarized as

follows:

1. Digital experience depends on the country you are in – as performance varies

from digital top players such as Denmark (0.68 digital performance score out

of 1) to lower-performance countries such as Romania (0.31 digital

performance score). Detailed information can be found in the country sheets.

2. A majority of Europeans use the Internet on a regular basis: 75% in 2014 (72%

in 2013), ranging from 93% in Luxembourg to 48% in Romania.

3. Europeans are eager to access audiovisual content online: 49% of Europeans

who go online have played or downloaded games, images, films or music. 39%

of households that have a TV watch video on demand.

4. Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) face barriers with e-commerce:

only 15% of SMEs sell online - and of that 15%, fewer than half do so across

borders.

5. Digital public services are an everyday reality in some countries but almost

non-existent in others: 33% of European Internet users have used online

forms to send information to public authorities, ranging from 69% in Denmark

to 6% in Romania. 26% of general practitioners in Europe use e-prescriptions

to transfer prescriptions to pharmacists over the Internet, but this varies from

100% in Estonia to 0% in Malta.

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Regarding the IT specialist gap, the average ICT specialist employment has grown

over 4% a year since 2000, seven times higher than total employment growth over the

same period. The EU has a growing deficit of ICT professional skills, forecast to reach

900,000 by 2020.

Despite the strong positive evolution in the

employment of ICT professionals in the EU over the

past decade, the employment potential of ICT is

underexploited. Evidence shows that there is a

growing gap emerging between the demand and

supply of ICT specialists in Europe. It is the purpose

of the Commission's Grand Coalition for Digital

Jobs initiative to address this issue of lacking ICT

professional skills. It is a multi-stakeholder

partnership that endeavours to facilitate collaboration among business and education

providers, public and private actors to take action attracting young people into ICT

education, and to retrain unemployed people.

On February 2014 European Commission former President José Manuel Barroso and

former Vice President Neelie Kroes brought CEOs from across the global economy

together at the World Economic Forum in Davos to expand the Coalition that is

delivering digital training opportunities and jobs. Corporate leaders were then invited

to endorse the Davos Declaration on the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs.

So far, more than 50 pledging organisations have shown their

commitment. Moreover, national coalitions have already been launched in Bulgaria,

Greece, Malta, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Poland; other relevant initiatives are

underway in more than 10 countries. Telecentre-Europe is coordinating the National

Coalitions forming in 10 countries and provides support and leadership to strengthen

the partnerships at national levels.

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1.3. Policy position papers

Telecentre Europe responded to the Public consultation on the Europe 2020 strategy,

launched by the European Commission in May 2014. Through this consultation the

Commission aimed at collecting views from stakeholders on the progress and further

development of the strategy.

The Europe 2020 strategy, with its targets and

initiatives, is the main reference point for policy

making in all areas – from trade and finances,

through transport and environment, to education

and social policy. Among others, EU funding

priorities are also aligned with the strategy.

Everyone could express their opinion: institutions, business, NGOs, as well as

individual citizens were invited to comment on whether the Europe 2020 strategy

works or not.

Among other European networks, Telecentre Europe provided its input bearing in

mind the interests of its members – organisations providing digital access and

trainings in digital skills. You can download our position paper here.

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CHAPTER II │Unite-IT – the European digital inclusion network

2.1. Introduction

The Unite-IT network and community has celebrated its first fully operational year

and has continued to expand, grow and develop month after month. While the first

year of the project was mostly dedicated to designing, shaping and building the

community and the dedicated sharing and posting spaces, the second year witnessed

the real usage and collaboration of digital inclusion practitioners, experts and

researchers. The next few sub-chapters present and document the achievement

achieved by the project in terms of the Unite-IT community development: design,

development and running. After that, Chapter

III will focus and will provide details on the

policies and best practices collected in the

searchable database.

During the following 12 months of the project

and after its finalisation the Unite-IT network

will continue to go through a consolidation phase

which will strengthen the membership, the

services and resources available.

2.2. Unite-IT network design The design phase of the Unite-IT network was successfully finalised and reviewed by

the project partners at the beginning of the second year of the project. The whole

structure of the network, including the rules, procedures and code of conduct are

contained in the Procedures Handbook for Network members. Although the Code of

Ethics chapter has been published as a separate document – for easier referencing –

it actually forms an integral part of the Handbook.

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The procedures Handbook for network members was designed by the network

partners as a guide to successfully establish the network and conduct all the activities

foreseen within the project and beyond.

The handbook presents the rules for creating and enlarging the network, the

description of workgroups as an important part of the network, describe the tools for

information sharing to be used by the partners for communication and exploitation

purposes. It also includes a guide for the organisation of the international events

(conferences) and online workshops with practical instructions/recommendations for

their success preparation and conduct.

Another section of the document explains the functionality of the online website and

its instructions. This is done by clarifying the purpose and content of each sub-section,

including the pool of best practices, policies, online webinars and forums. This part

also explains access rules of the portal and authentication levels.

Finally, the handbook presents a series of templates created to facilitate the collection

of best practices and policies, preparation of important tasks such as the leveraging of

information, the member profiling, and the report on International Events and

workshops.

As mentioned before, the Code of Ethics has been published separately with the

objective of establishing the Unite-IT community as a professional Network for Digital

Inclusion in Europe.

The Code of Ethics has been designed by the founding members and is made up of

four elements:

A Mission Statement

Core Actions

Network values

Good Practices

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Some of the most important updates in the final version of the Procedures Handbook,

as per joint agreement of the project consortium partners are highlighted below:

Unite IT community consists of individual members only, not organisations;

If any organisations are interested to join the Unite-IT community, they may join

Telecentre-Europe as formal members;

The registration form which needs to be filled by any person wishing to join the

Unite-IT community has been changed in order to make the process easier and

more straight-forward, eliminating the compulsory fields related to affiliate

organisation, but including questions related to the contributions and the added

value each member could potentially bring to the network.

Individual members can join either as representatives of their organisation, or just

as individuals;

Telecentre-Europe will manage reviews/will approve the membership requests;

Network management will be carried out by the Unite-IT project partners until

the official ending date of the project. As part of the sustainability strategy, this

process will be taken over by the Telecentre-Europe Board members.

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2.2. Unite-IT network development The network development phase of the project is an ongoing process which has

evolved during the past 24 months of the project, although all the basic development

stages were finalised at the end of the first year. While during the first year the focus

was on creating a strong and robust online portal, the second year was mostly shaping

and fine-tuning all the functionalities so that members using the network find their

way easily around the portal.

After consultation with stakeholders and internal discussions, the project consortium

reached the conclusion that the portal would be further developed in English

language, with only parts of the information translated into the partners’ languages.

This decision is justified by the fact that the portal has a strong characteristic of a

social network and is based on posting blogposts and news in real time. It was agreed

that the dynamics achieved by the community members will be affected if a lot of focus

and effort would go into translating all the materials posted. Further to this, Unite-IT

is an international community, whose common working language is English.

The “About the project” section on the portal comprises all the information about the

project objectives, results and expected outcomes and was therefore translated and

the country flags below each lead to 8 different blogposts in the 8 languages of the

project:

Further improvements have been achieved in terms of the Network Toolkit. Although

the original plan of the project partnership was to create a text document explaining

in a series of step by step short guides how the portal can be used for different

interests, the common agreement was that visual and practical tutorials would be

more efficient and less time consuming for those wishing to explore the portal or its

main sections.

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In this context, three main tutorials and 3 separate downloadable infographics were

created for the following stages of portal usage:

General overview of the portal and the most common features of the portal with

information on sign-up and general searching:

A presentation of the four working groups, general guidelines about how to join a

particular working group and some of the benefits of being part of one such group:

Tutorial on how to use the Unite-IT searchable database and a presentation of the

process to follow when proposing a new good practice

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2.3. Unite-IT network running

The coordination and running of the Unite-IT network was officially launched during

the First Annual Unite-IT conference held in Malta in October 2013. This section of

the report comprises some key figures and a summary of the activities carried out by

the network partners to enhance the participation of multi-sector stakeholders in the

area of digital inclusion between October 2013 and November 2014.

The network in numbers – end of 2014:

577 members

791 blogposts and articles

68 photo albums

1700 photos

122 videos

88 events

4 working groups

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Running the Unite-IT network has obviously underlined a number of activities which

are strictly linked with dissemination and exploitation. Because the running of the

network represents 2/3rds of the total duration of the project, the consortium

partners have devoted a significant time to develop the network both following the

plans initially described in the project application but allowing sufficient flexibility to

help the community evolve in a lively and pro-active way. For relationship building

and forming partnerships within the community it was important to keep a certain

discipline and structure but also allow conversations and blogpost be published freely

(as long as the topic was connected to digital inclusion).

The membership

As presented above, at the end of 2014, the4 Unite-IT online community brought

together 577 individual members from 78 countries. Although Unite-IT is mainly

an Europe wide e-inclusion network (72% of total members), it has so far attracted a

considerable international community of members (28% of total membership). From

a gender point of view, there are more registered female users in the community, with

a proportion of 2/3 female members and 1/3 male members.

The internal activities of running the network were focused on the following

categories of activity:

Running of the working groups

Updating activities

Interaction activities

Reporting activities

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Running of the working groups (WGs)

Each of the four working groups established at the end of the first year of the project

have been registering a steady growth in terms of membership and topics of common

interest (discussions).

The Working Group on Gender now brings

together 16 individual members (representing in total

14 different organisation) and have been engaged in

10 discussions brought up by the WG coordinators to

inform and raise awareness.

This working group has been involved in exchanges

on bilateral basis and offering support to those

organisations who plan to develop gender specific

projects within their operations in the future. The working group specific blogposts

and discussions offer general information on the news and opportunities in this field.

However, coordinated webinars have also been organised during the past year. One

of the most appreciated webinars coordinated and facilitated by the Working Group

lead organisation – Interface 3 – from Brussels, Belgium was the webinar on 20 June

2014 on the theme of ICT Learning projects screened from a gender point of view.

This webinar reached 17 participants from 12 countries and was delivered online

through the Cisco platform web-service. The recording of the webinar is available on

the Cisco platform. Telecentre-Europe is currently working on making these videos

available to the wider community through a service linked with the Unite-IT platform.

The Gender WG has also had the opportunity to re-unite during the 2nd Unite-IT

Annual Conference held in Zagreb and to discuss projects of joint interest. The main

topics of the face to face meeting of the working group was centred on the issues of

girls in STEM, stereotypes, awareness-raising. More information on the detailed

discussions and conclusions reached by the working group are available in the 2nd

Unite-IT Conference Report.

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The Working Group on Youth Employability

has attracted 24 members into this group and has

posted and facilitated 8 discussions and articles of

interest to the group members. Like in the other

working groups, a lot of bilateral support was

available.

Besides many issues related to the youth

employability working group, some of which were

found to slightly overlap with the topics discussed within the Education and Training

Working Group, a newly developed youth employability tool attracted lots of attention

and interest. The YouRock.Jobs platform allows young people to self-assess and

highlight their skills and gain confidence while at the same time being present in a

database that is accessible to potential employers. The platform has been translated

into 15 languages and a user guide on how to use this tool for telecentres is under

development. As a consequence of the success of this initiative, the Working Group

Coordinating partner LIKTA from Latvia proposed and ran, on 29 May 2014, an

online webinar on YouRock so that as many organisations as possible get

familiarised with this tool and understand how to use it in their respective countries.

The WG on Youth Employability also had the opportunity to bring together the

members of this working group to a face to face discussion session during the 2nd

Unite-IT Annual Conference in September in Zagreb, Croatia. The topics discussed

during this session were related to gaming, coding, awareness-raising, jobs for youth

and the currently existing skills mismatch. WG participants generated some ideas for

campaigns that Telecentre-Europe members or the Unite-IT members can do at pan-

European level. One example would be a campaign targeting parents’ lack of

information about ICT careers and support on how to best support and guide youth

towards IT specialist jobs.

Some participants shared their country’s experience with the Youth Guarantee Fund

as different approaches and uses of the fund exist. Participants motivated those

present to advocate with national governments that these funds are spent for training

programmes for young people.

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The Working Group on Vulnerable Groups

comprises an online community of 33 members

who have discussed 11 specific topics related to

immigrants and persons with disabilities. An online

webinar was also conducted under the coordination

and facilitation from the working group coordinator

International Aid Network – IAN from Serbia. The

webinar brought together practitioners and

specialists from the e-inclusion sector who are

developing or interested to develop e-skills projects for vulnerable groups. The

webinar was organised on 17 July 2014 under the working title of ICT and Persons

with disabilities, but explored issues related to immigration and the benefits of e-skills to

bridge the gap and break down barriers in inclusion.

The Working Group has also been sharing interesting research findings about the use of

technology for supporting elderly people with dementia. It seems that one of the key

issues identified by the members of this working group is the awareness-raising

among the general public to prevent prejudice regarding use of ICT by persons with

disabilities, so role models and campaigns are needed in this area as well. Participants

all agreed that another step in the expansion of assistive technology should be its

promotion in primary and secondary schools, and introducing it to teachers. Another

topic discussed by this working group was the motivation of vulnerable groups for

using ICT: low motivation is one of the greatest challenges in digital inclusion of

vulnerable groups.

Finally, Telecentre workers and staff knowledge of assistive technology was debated

widely. Group members highlighted the necessity to follow the development of

assistive technology, training and informing staff on advancements in the field, but

also raising knowledge and understanding of problems people with disabilities have.

A new webinar will be planned for the beginning of 2015 with a focus on Removing

Barriers to Digital Inclusion.

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The Working Group on Education and

Training indicates the fact that a lot of members

have a special interest in education and training. This

working group is by far the biggest with 65 members

and the one with most shared discussions – 16

separate discussion threads. This working groups has

attracted by far more interest than the other working

groups during the first year of its real operation and

development. This indicated still a high interest in the topics of skills mismatch,

employers’ training programmes, GC4DJ, adult education and the role of telecentres

and libraries as well as any public internet access points.

Webinars proved to be a very successful way of sharing information and idea on

various topics. The first webinar with this working group was organised on 20 April

and focused on How to run a successful certification campaign. Over 10.000

free Microsoft Office and Technology Associate exams were used in the partner

countries and the Unite-IT network, specifically the working group on Education and

Training were keen and able to discuss directly good practices and problems related

to organising national certification campaigns. Two new webinar topics have been

suggested by the members of this WG: the e-Competence framework, its importance

and mapping of courses to the framework and business driven training programs,

which provide free learning resources for young people and the wider community.

Companies like Microsoft, HP, Cisco and Autodesk, but also others will be invited to

present their free learning opportunities to the Unite-IT group members.

The WG also met face to face during the 2nd Unite-IT Annual Conference. One of the

most interesting topics discussed was the position of the European Commission

towards open source, free technology environments. However, participants agreed

that most technology jobs over the next few years would be created within the

industry, which uses proprietary technology. Since these businesses will be creating

the future jobs, people need to be trained in developing competences within this

sector, rather than general open source technology.

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2.4. The 2nd Unite-IT Annual Conference on Digital Empowerment – All Inclusive

The 2nd Unite-IT Annual Conference “Digital Empowerment – All Inclusive” was

organised on 24th of September 2014 at the Hotel International. It gathered together

Unite-IT partners and other stakeholders (Telecentre Europe members, policy-

makers, telecentre leaders, ICT company representatives and local media and public

authorities) to discuss current developments in the field of e-Inclusion in Europe.

It was the annual occasion for the four thematic groups to come together and hold live

sessions on topics identified during the online preparation of the conference. Well in

advance of the conference all participants were invited to join the online discussions

animated by the working group leaders and to contribute with ideas and comments

on the topics to be discussed.

A number of renowned international experts from academia, practice and policy

enriched the discussion with their introductory contributions and gave some food for

thought to the 119 participants in this full-day event.

The highlight of the annual event was the Unite-IT e-Inclusion Awards. The Unite-IT

conference ended on a high note with the first Unite-IT e-Inclusion awards in four

categories corresponding to the four thematic/working groups. Dr. Mara Jakobsone,

Chair of Telecentre Europe’s Board, opened the ceremony together with Ivan

Stojilovic, Vice Chair of the Board. With the Unite-IT AwardsTelecentre Europe

renewed itstradition to acknowledge thework of grass-root organisationsworking

on the field and torecognise their efforts on the international level. It also confirmed

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its commitment to provide opportunities for collaboration and exchange for different

organisations, regardless the scale or budget of their project.

The awards were handed to the winners by the honorary guests: Dr. Christoph Kaletka

from the Technical University of Dortmund; Renata Danieliene (Young Advisor to

Neelie Kroes); Austrian Digital Champion Meral Akin-Hecke; and Ilona Kish from the

Reading & Writing Foundation.

The winners of the Unite-IT e-inclusion awards in 2014 were:

The full report of the conference can be downloaded here: http://www.unite-

it.eu/page/annual-report.

Gender Award:

Handmade and IT for women implemented by Pontus Euxinus Library in Navodari in Romania

Youth employability Award:

Social Innovation Environment project from Consorcio Fernando De

Los Ríos, Spain

Vulnerable Groups Award:

Open the Windows, Macedonia in their Project for e- Accessible

Education

Education and Training Award: Regional Telecottages Public

Association of South Hungarian Plain for their project Telecottage Katedra

- Smartphones

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CHAPTER III │ Best practices and e-inclusion policies database 3.1. The database of good practices

The Unite IT Database was constructed to allow access to the repository of European

practices and policies with specific regard to ICT for inclusion and social cohesion.

The Database presents practices and policies related to digital inclusion, and

initiatives, trends, policy agendas at a local, national and European level. The Database

is available free of charge for the registered Unite IT portal users.

The procedure for submitting new practices developed during the design phase of the

network has functioned well for organizations wishing to submit best practices. The

project consortium agreed to keep the same procedure in place – to keep the fillable

.pdf form procedure to make it easier for members to focus on the contents and review

their entered text easier. As already mentioned in the chapter before, the project

partners developed an infographic and a video tutorial to support users in getting more

familiar with the database.

Until the end of 2014 – which represents approximately 13 months since the database

was available to partners and other organisations – a number of 79 best practices

were uploaded online. The chart below details the number of practices submitted per

country of the submitting organisation. It is obvious that the project consortium

partners demonstrated a higher level of activity and have uploaded more good

practices – this was understood as a means to encourage and motivate other

organisations to start sharing their experiences.

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The general trend for the good practices uploaded into the database has been searched

and evaluated to better understand the target groups which are mainly served by the

organisations who have uploaded best practices. It is obvious that from the total

number of best practices available the most targeted groups in terms of digital

inclusion are the unemployed, seniors and followed by the general public and

young people. The chart below presents the breakdown of practices per target

group:

It is clear that the ecosystem around digital inclusion and e-skills sector is very diverse

and it targets various groups in the communities. However it is worth mentioning that

there is still a lot of support available for people working in the digital inclusion area

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– there are many training opportunities which support workers in the field to keep up

with the changing technologies and the challenging widening skills gap which is

present in almost every nation in Europe.

If we are to have a closer look at the types of programmes that are generally rolled out

across digital inclusion programmes, we notice that e-skills, employability and IT

specialist courses represent over 75% of total good practices contributed to the

Unite-IT database. Although the chart above shows a pretty scattered and wide

audience, it seems that in terms of the support needed at grassroots level the types of

programmes are clustered around IT and employability. Multimedia and the Internet

are the next two types of programmes which seem to be on the priority list of e-

inclusion intermediaries, followed by innovation, mobile apps and accessibility. Based

on the latest uploads the databased indicated an increase in the best practices that

tackle multimedia – there is a growing need for users to learn how to handle and use

efficiently audio-visual tools like photo-editing, video usage and familiarisation with

online learning environments which use mostly audio and video tools to support the

trainees.

The chart below summarises the overview of all best practices submitted by the end

of 2014 in the Unite-IT searchable database:

Accessibility eskills Innovation

Internet Employability IT Specialist

Mobile apps Multimedia

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3.2. Unite-IT call for good practices

In order to improve the content of the database and diversify the types of programmes

for selected best practices, the project consortium agreed on launching a call for the

best e-inclusion practices to encourage and motivate participating organisations

to share their experiences and resources.

The call for submitting best practices was organised in connection with the e-inclusion

Awards. The awards were structured according to the four Unite-IT working groups

on Gender, Vulnerable Groups, Youth Employability and Education and Training. The

best practices which were already uploaded in the database qualified for the awards

with the exception of the practices submitted by the consortium partners themselves

to avoid any conflict of interest. The open invitation to submit new practices was

widely and actively promoted through each partners social media channels. Also, the

8-page brochure created advertised the open call for contributions.

The assessment of the best practices in each category was managed by the project

partners in several steps. An evaluation grid was first created and a jury was invited

to evaluate each of the best practices entered into the awards competition. Following

the evaluation by the members of the jury one winner in each category was nominated

and approved.

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CHAPTER IV │ Conclusions, recommendations and further action

There are plenty of digital opportunities waiting to be unlocked to benefit European

citizens and companies. From shopping or studying online, to paying bills or using

public services over the Internet – the Web is the answer, if the right conditions are

in place.

But, there is still a significant skills gap with large numbers of Europeans

without any measurable skills. Furthermore, amongst those that have skills, they

appear to be quite siloed; with many more people having competence in particular

domains but with few having across the board well developed digital skills.

Disadvantaged people are also disadvantaged in terms of their internet access and

skills having significantly lower levels of skills. By contrast most of the workforce has

some level of skills. Indeed, 86% have at least some skills, close to the widely cited

requirement of 90% of jobs needing digital skills. Although almost 40%, record "low"

or "no" skills and those with skills again seem not to have a broad set of skills.

Results for all individuals show that 23% of the EU population has no digital skills.

Considering that to function effectively in the digital society one needs at least

medium level or "basic" skills, it can be seen that almost half the EU population (47%)

do not attain this level of skill having either "low" or "no" digital skills.

0%

50%

100%

IS NL

DK FR SK

EU2

8

HU

MT PL IT R

O

Digital Skills Indicator:(% individuals)

Above Basic

Basic

Low

No skills

30

The digital skills of disadvantage people are generally lower than those of the

average population. In the EU28 38% of disadvantaged people have "no" digital skills.

The EU countries with the lowest rates of "no skills" among disadvantaged people are

Sweden (11%) and the Netherlands (12%). The countries with the highest rates are

Romania (70%), and Bulgaria (67%).

The reality is that at the end of 2014, as per research carried out by the European

Comission, many countries are very much lagging behind. These countries need to

tackle their lack of strategy and achievement in ensuring a digitally inclusive society

for all its citizens.

As a general conclusion of the Unite-IT annual report we can say that there are still

millions of European citizens who are not benefitting from the information society,

the internet and who do not have yet the chance to acquire digital skills. There seems

0%

50%

100%

IS NL

LU FR IE

EU2

8 LV PT IT CY

RO

Digital skills of disadvantaged people

Digital skills Indicator…

Above basic

Basic

Low

No

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to be a more and more targeted focus on the digital single market, on employability,

ICT specialist skills – and these are of course extremely important to continue the

advancement and progress of society and for citizens to keep up with the increasingly

fast technological changes.

However, the organisations and individuals which currently form the Unite-IT

network have a common goal on continuing to support those who are most difficult to

bring on board of the information society. Basic digital skills and e-inclusion

programmes are a core component of many digital inclusion organisations focus and

should not be considered less important than the higher level ICT specialist skills.

Unite-IT individuals and members will continue to advocate and raise awareness at

the EU level regarding the importance of focusing efforts in the areas which continue

to remain difficult to tackle. In the past years, there was a lot of discussion about the

digital divide. This gap has closed for some, but has deepened hugely for others. While

some countries and communities strive and advance well technologically, others are

disrupted from the information society, are denied their contribution and need

targeted support and specially dedicated digital inclusion programmes to bring them

on board of the Digital Agenda.

Through the Unite-IT project partnership,

and the wider e-inclusion community created

through the current project, there will be a

progressive development of the e-inclusion

community in Europe. The aim is to bring

together people, organisations, practices,

ideas, news and resources which define the

Unite-IT network and shape it community to

better serve their target groups.

Last, but not least, partnerships are currently sought with other Europe-wide social,

education or technology networks and the Unite-IT community so that the

collaborative effort of Unite-IT organisations is cross-fertilized with other similar

initiatives in Europe.

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