NEWS

Boosting digital literacy is a challenge faced across Europe, as well as worldwide. In Ireland, 42%of people currently describe themselves as having ‘below average’ digital skills, which is unsustainable as we steer towards a fully digitalised economy, depending on the basic digital skills and knowledge of all citizens to thrive.

What are the ways in which we can address this skills gap?

Partners of the Irish Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition are at the forefront of this debate and the work related to growing these skills. Below are three examples of partner organisations, with different focus areas, but with a common goal to foster digital literacy across Ireland.

ICDL Ireland is a leading digital skills training and certification partner that has helped over 800,000 learners in Ireland to upskill for education or employment. As part of a network of experts from national computer societies and other partners, ICDL Ireland provides vendor-independent standards to its customers, including public and private sector employers in all sectors across Ireland.

Linda Keane, General Manager at ICDL Europe, stated that:

“Digital skills are now required across all parts of society. The vast majority of workers require digital skills to succeed at their jobs which means that a strong economy now also relies on a digitally literate population. A flexible and targeted approach to learning along with training tailored to the skills profile of the learner will help us reach all in society who need to upskill, reskill and start their digital skills learning path.”  

An Cosán, Ireland’s largest provider of adult community education, provides pathways to learning from access (entry level) right through to further and higher education to people across Ireland. Courses available include early years’ education and care, community care, community development, leadership, addiction studies and social enterprise. For many years An Cosán has pioneered the use of educational technology to scale its reach across the country and into under-served communities, offering many blended online and classroom-based courses.

Speaking at the ‘Get Yourself Online’ launch, An Cosán Chief Executive Officer Heydi Foster said:

“We must ensure that we continue to strive to reach those furthest behind first, and start the process of building their confidence around digital competence. We must continue together to strive for at least 80% digital inclusion by 2030, so that they have the equity of opportunity that technology and digital skills offers.” 

SOLAS is the state agency tasked with building the Further Education and Training (FET) sector, and it helps fund and coordinate a wide range of training and further education programmes, working in partnership with local Education and Training Boards (ETB’s) as well as schools and colleges, and a range of education agencies nationally. SOLAS led on the development of a cross-government, cross-economy, cross-society Adult Literacy for Life: A 10 year Adult Literacy, Numeracy and Digital Literacy Strategy published in 2021.

Andrew Brownlee, SOLAS CEO, commented:

“Boosting digital literacy is vital to enabling equitable participation in our increasingly digital society. Digital skills are required to access opportunities and services, from making job applications to managing bills, and are key to staying relevant in a labour market undergoing digitisation. Ensuring there are opportunities for individuals to access support for their digital skills development throughout their lives is a challenge, but a challenge we can overcome by working with partners across Ireland.” 

Working together to close the digital divide

The three above-mentioned coalition partners are great examples of how organisations are actively engaged in the work to support digital skills, from basic literacy to more advanced IT know-how. At the same time, their efforts are being shared in the national coalition network of stakeholders. The Irish Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition platform enables partners to set specific priorities and address them together. This includes promoting a modern approach to teaching, upskilling the labour force, promoting professions in IT as a career choice, identifying obstacles to developing digital skills, as well as raising public and employers’ awareness of digital upskilling.

In summary, the national coalition brings together all actions to grow digital skills and allows partners to acknowledge achievements reached, as well as to provide each other with suggested paths forward.

About Mary Cleary

Mary Cleary is Secretary-General of the Irish Computer Society (ICS). She is also the Chair of CEN Technical Committee 428: ‘Digital Competences and IT Professionalism’.

About the Irish Computer Society

The mission of the Irish Computer Society is to advance, promote and represent the interests of ICT professionals in Ireland. Founded in 1967 as an organisation to represent ICT professionals, the ICT provides guidance on professional standards, network and partnership opportunities, and resources to professional development for its members. The Irish Computer Society also works to advance and promote computer literacy, including certification of qualifications, encouraging the development and availability of ICT curricula, and promotes appropriate and confident ICT use throughout the education system.

The VI edition of the Social Hackathon Umbria (#SHU2022) took place from 30 June to 3 July 2022 in Montefalco, Italy. The event took place for the very first time in 2016. Organised by the European Grants International Academy (EGInA) in collaboration with the Crowddreaming Hackadmy Lab Foligno 4D (CRHACK LAB F4D), the event aimed to develop the digital skills of young people through preparatory trainings and a Hackathon. In this context, #SHU2022 focused on the co-creation of innovative digital solutions to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.

Happy hacking! From an idea to solutions for key global challenges

#SHU2022 is slightly different than an average hackathon. Most of the hackathons that take place throughout Europe and the world are most often addressed to IT experts. What is more, their marketing strategy is usually based on the availability of cash prizes or the access to business acceleration programmes. The Social Hackathon puts forward a different and more innovative approach to addressing a wider audience and solving concrete challenges.

So how do we define a social hackathon? At its heart, the Social Hackathon is a participatory and open process, aiming to identify specific challenges related to improving one (or more) societal issues.

The Social Hackathon also branches out of the usual IT-focused area, resting on collaboration between people with a low level of digital skills. Participants in a Social Hackathon may have different roles depending on this level – but one thing in common is the expectation of learning new skills (while having fun!), and a shared interest to contribute to the development of a digital solution with a social impact.

Social Hacking for Accessibility: one step closer to the UN’s SDGs

With the participation of 185 social hackers from all over Europe, #SHU2022 has greatly engaged people with different backgrounds and interests in the co-development of websites, apps, digital games, and social marketing strategies to support and add value to activities carried out by local CSOs (Civil Society Organisations) across four areas of accessibility, linked to the UN’s SDGs. We look at each of the 4 areas in a bit more detail below.

Physical Accessibility

Goal 11 of the UN Agenda 2030 aims to provide universal access to safe, inclusive, and accessible green and public spaces, particularly for women and children, the elderly and persons with disabilities. SHU2022 projects have met the challenge of accessing and moving independently in physical environments. Take for example the Smascherati! team group that helped to strengthen identity and community, appreciate history, improve accessibility, and expand the network around the project.

Digital Accessibility

Goal 9 of UN Agenda 2030 aims to significantly increase access to information and communication technologies and the effort to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet. Supporting projects responded to the challenge of using information systems and resources typically via assistive technologies.

The EFT Team realized the Open Data project. An open and easily reusable project from reliable sources for all citizens. Open Data means public data in an open, “free” format accessible to all citizens, as well as easily reusable and exchangeable on the web, without copyright, patent or other limitations. It is used in schools to “Learn in a meaningful way through the IBSE (Inquiry Based Science Education) methodology”.

Economic Accessibility

Goal 8 of UN Agenda 2030 aims to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, young people and people with disabilities, and secure equal pay for work of equal value. SHU2022 projects have met the challenge of harnessing a particular tangible or intangible resource to meet a particular human need.

The ANLAIDS team promotes studies and research on AIDS. The project had four main objectives: Website and pages creation, Registration time for the free trial, Built-in translation option, and Documentation for the future maintenance of the local organization.

Cognitive Accessibility

Goal 4 of UN Agenda 2030 aims to eliminate gender disparities and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the most vulnerable ones, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and children in vulnerable situations. The co-development teams presented projects that can allow disadvantaged people to independently enjoy and access cultural and educational content.

The Educhiamoci Team has created an App aimed at young adults that breaks down the problems related to the “patient-psychologist” approach, stimulating people to become aware of their emotional distress by remaining anonymous and preventing the onset of conditions that can worsen over time.

In brief, we can consider the 2022 edition of Social Hackademy a success. The event also reinforced how the Social Hackademy Methodology, developed by the European NGO All Digital in collaboration with the international partners of the Erasmus+ project #HACKAD, can have a positive impact on the digital skills of young people, through collaborative activities and co-creation.

About the author

Sociologist and communicator, Altheo has been working for more than 15 years as a project manager in the framework of various financing instruments of the European Commission, with a particular focus on digital and social innovation, for which he has founded the European Grants International Academy Srl.
Altheo deeply believes in transformative social change and he implements it by leading All Digital, the EU NGO for the promotion of digital skills, and the Social Hackathon Umbria, a 48-hour digital marathon for the co-creation of innovative solutions.

The digital transformation, accelerated by the COVID-19 induced a digital surge, and calls for a skills revolution in Europe. It is a challenge and opportunity, where matters of inclusion and growth converge. Europe needs education systems fit for the digital age, alongside supplementary programs to train and retrain the adult population. This two-sided challenge concerns both basic digital skills and the specialised skills needed to innovate in Key Enabling Technologies like Artificial Intelligence or Internet of Things and enhance cybersecurity.

Towards the EU Digital Decade

The importance of these two dimensions has been underscored by the EU Digital Compass and its ambitious targets in the domain of digital skills. Yet, latest research predicts that current initiatives will fail to meet two key goals – to provide at least 80% of Europe’s adult population with basic digital skills, and to employ 20 million digital specialists in the EU by 2030. Without a substantial increase in investment and innovation on the supply side, the current trajectory indicates that by 2030 only 64% of the population will attain at least basic digital skills and only 13.3 million digital specialists will be employed.

‘The Future of Education for Digital Skills’ 2022 report

In its latest Makers & Shapers report ‘The Future of Education for Digital Skills’, EIT Digital tackles this issue through analysis of the supply of broadly defined education and training by public and private institutions. We identified the main gaps in the status quo, extracted foresight scenarios, and provide three core recommendations for how the most favourable scenario could be achieved in Europe.

Europe’s public education system, from primary schools to universities, needs to urgently modernize the largely outdated digital education programs.

The public offering must reform its curricula at all levels by making them more responsive to changing technologies and labour market needs. This requires organisational and governance reforms to open the systems to partnerships with civil society as well as tangible investments in connectivity and new training for educators.

Scattered private digital education initiatives should move to a complementary, broader, and better coordinated overall offering of digital skills initiatives.

To include mid-level digital skills, private players should broaden their scope and provide courses that focus not only on their own technological ecosystem. Jointly with the public sector, they should offer financial support schemes that increase the pool of participants to their education offering. For this, new partnerships between educational institutions, businesses, NGOs, and governments are needed.

To reach the digital skill targets of the EU Digital Compass in a fair, inclusive, and sustainable way, and given the huge challenges and costs involved, there is a need for better orchestrated pan-European digital skills initiatives, networks, and ecosystems to increase overall quality, efficiency, and effectiveness.

Existing initiatives like those of the EIT and the European Universities Network should be better coordinated, further strengthened, and extended to include the private sector. In close collaboration with EU Member States, the European Commission shall lead to establish a fair and inclusive digital skills education system across Europe that involves both public and private education providers.

About the author

Prof. Willem Jonker is the CEO of EIT Digital. He has a broad background in ICT, both in industry as well as in academia. He studied mathematics and computer science at Groningen University, worked at Delft University of Technology, received his PhD from the University of Utrecht, and is a part-time full professor in computer science at Twente University.

About the organisation

EIT Digital is the gateway to European digital innovation.

We embody the future of innovation by mobilizing a pan-European multi-stakeholder open-innovation ecosystem of top European corporations, SMEs, start-ups, universities and research institutes, where students, researchers, engineers, business developers and investors address the technology, talent, skills, business and capital needs of digital entrepreneurship.

We build the next generation of digital ventures, digital products and services, and breed digital entrepreneurial talent, helping business and entrepreneurs to be at the frontier of digital innovation by providing them with technology, talent, and growth support.

EIT Digital answers specific innovation needs by, for example, finding the right partners to bring technology to the market, supporting the scale-up of digital technology ventures, attracting talent and developing their digital knowledge and skills.