By Esther Subias, El Teb

Born on the initiative of educators and teachers of a district of Barcelona, ​​the Raval, to attend the needs of young people, El Teb is about to celebrate its 25 years of existence.

It is a pleasure for us to be the local partner of the All Digital Summit, together with our European friends, this year. This meeting will undoubtedly be an opportunity to continue networking, learning about new trends, and designing a digital future for citizens.

Under the motto “we work for social transformation through participation, learning and socialization of ICTs“, in the Teb more than 20 professionals from the social, pedagogical, technological and communication fields carry out their task to achieve full Inclusion of citizenship and development of the nearest territory.

We believe in and bet on the social and solidarity economy and we are flexible, innovative and, above all, social. And, of course, very technological: we defend the free software, we promote such innovative activities as programming with Scratch, 3D printing, digital citizens laboratories, robotics, etc. We like to experiment with technologies and discover the social and formative use they can have.

25 years of experience with ICT tools

Over the years, Teb professionals have learned from our daily practice in the Raval, and that is why we try to transfer that “know-how” and also our view of the world to other projects, other entities and other places. For example, we created the first telecenter in Catalonia and we have helped to develop the other 650 ones. We manage, at the request of the Government of Catalonia, the network of Telecentres Punt TIC and also projects of advice to the associations. We learn from them.

Always in social settings, we help entities and citizens to incorporate technologies to better manage and communicate and develop their own networks and activities (training, workshops, projects, etc.). We also develop web platforms and e-learning training, based on the use of free software. We provide very specific training on the social use of digital tools and, in recent years, we have participated in European technology projects with our ALL DIGITAL partners. We are always learning and offering our knowledge, freely and openly.

In Teb we believe in technology as a tool of transformation; in innovation as a strategy to solve the problems in different ways; in communication and storytelling as powerful tools of empowerment.

Welcome! If you enter the Teb, you enter your home.

In its tenth year, ALL DIGITAL (formerly Telecentre Europe) will return to its birthplace, Barcelona, to organise the 10th annual summit under the theme of Digital Skills for Social Innovation on 4-5 October 2017. The event will be held at the CaixaForum in Barcelona and hosted by the Spanish member El Teb Association in collaboration with Fundación Esplai and Government of Catalonia.

Who we are

Back in 2007, a group of digital inclusion leaders, with support from Microsoft met for the first time in Barcelona to discuss scaling up local and national initiatives and the potential of a thematic network at European level. That is where Telecentre-Europe was born, to become a family united by one purpose: empower Europe through digital skills.

Ten years later, we are a major European Association in the field of digital inclusion and empowerment. Our vision that every European should be able to exploit the benefits and opportunities created by digital transformation has led us in 2017 to become ALL DIGITAL.

The Summit

The ALL DIGITAL Summit 2017 will bring together leaders from networks and organisations working to enhance digital skills to share and learn from each other. It will provide an opportunity to explore a range of digital social innovations in developing competences that citizens, organisations, and communities need to embrace in order to reap the benefits of the digital society. These innovations include mobile learning, coding for digital inclusion, collaborative opportunities on the social internet, STEAM education and many others.

Participants will discover and discuss the changing role of digital competence centres (telecentres), and how they can be enriched with an open approach to innovation. The mandate of digital competence centres has been to empower citizens in developing their digital, social, entrepreneur and employability skills. Nowadays, the centres becoming more innovative spaces than ever before, developing and applying new learning strategies and approaches, expanding their scope to include co-creation, mobile learning, coding, use of open data, digital manufacturing tools and much more. The centres offer citizens new tools that empower them to become ‘prosumers’ and to co-generate content, knowledge and new collaborative opportunities (in both social and labour fields) within the framework of the Social Internet. They help to include citizens in the labour market and to create new circular, collaborative, and cooperative economies. The delegates will explore and share these new approaches in a variety of discussion groups, workshops, and plenary sessions.

To learn more about the upcoming event, please check the Summit Programme.

Registration is now open on our website. We look forward to seeing you in Barcelona!

Social Media

• Facebook: @AllDigitalEU  Twitter: @AllDigitalEU
• Hashtags: #AllDigitalEU; #DigitalSkills
• Blogging space (on the ALL DIGITAL community website Unite-IT): unite-it.eu
• Website: summit.all-digital.org

ALL DIGITAL Summit 2017 is co-organised by two projects

• I-LINC is a project funded through Horizon2020 by the European Commission. I-LINC created a stakeholder platform as well as a community of experts and organisations that foster employment and entrepreneurship through digital skills. In 2017, I-LINC will host one of the sessions at the Summit.
• The CodeMob project (Teaching coding and mobile devices in telecentres) is aimed at designing and piloting two courses on coding and the effective use of mobile devices training curriculum for e-Facilitators and end-users. ALL DIGITAL Summit 2017 will host the project’s final event in the form of a workshop discussion covering the project’s domain.

Background

Previously called the Telecentre Europe Annual Conference, the event has been one of the main meeting points for leaders of digital competence networks and organisations working to enhance digital skills.

Since 2008, ALL DIGITAL has organised nine annual conferences for its member organizations and stakeholders. Last year, the three-day event Digital Skills for Future Work in Ghent, Belgium, was attended by over 120 participants and sponsored by Liberty Global and Cisco. Learn more about the event

Participants of Telecentre Europe Annual Conference 2016 in Ghent, Belgium

The report highlights a three-day event, which took place in Ghent on 6-8th October 2016. More than 120 participants attended the conference. Besides Telecentre Europe member organizations, the conference welcomed ICT sector representatives from Belgium and Netherlands, policy makers from Belgium and EU, a group of youth organisations and civil society organisations and municipal authorities, as well as I-LINC young ambassadors.

The key theme of the event explored the skills, both ICT and soft skills, that citizens will need in the future. This was put in the context of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” and the advances in technology that are starting now and likely to continue for the next generation, such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Internet of Things, 3D Printing, Virtual Reality, etc. Citizens will need to gain new skills to not only take advantage of these new technologies, but to remain in employment, and telecentres should consider how to support citizens in these technologies. Thus, Day 1 was focused on policy and practice around digital skills for future technologies and modes of employment, while Day 2 provided further in-depth discussion on future skills for learning and recruitment and practical sessions.

See the short video of the event here and the longer video with more insights from speakers here.

The report wraps up the  plenary sessions with inspiring keynotes, an I-LINC discussion panel on youth pathways to employment, interactive sessions and workshops, as well as the numerous side events, including visits to Ghent telecentres, preview of Ghent Digital Interactive Fair and Telecentre Europe and I-LINC Awards Ceremony. The Awards video can be found here.

In the report, you will find the links to all presentations, workshop materials, photos and videos, as well as the short summary of evaluation forms; so it is a one stop for all conference-related information.

The report is also credited and supported by tweet posts and photos from participants, so you can get the feedback from attendees and feel the atmosphere.

You can view and download the report in .pdf here – teac-2016-report

Telecentre Europe would like to thank the city of Ghent, Digipolis, our sponsors Cisco Systems and Liberty Global, speakers, session moderators, workshop leaders and delegates for such a successful event!

We are looking forward to the next year’s event in Barcelona!

By Gabriela Ruseva

Telecentre Europe held its 9th Annual Conference in Ghent on 6-8th October, co-organised with our Belgian member Digipolis Gent and the I-LINC Platform. The 3-day event was attended by over a 100 invited participants and took place in the beautiful central hotel NH Belfort where guests enjoyed 2 days of keynote speeches, interactive sessions, networking and sharing, as well as a lot of fun and inspiration. An award ceremony in Ghent City Hall followed up by live music and dancing in the medieval cellar was the highlight of this positive experience. Great hands on experiences were also offered to participants who had the chance to visit local telecentres guided by enthusiastic staff of the Digipolis team and experience cutting-edge technologies at the Ghent Interactive Digital Fair on the 3rd and final day of the event.

Overall, the dynamics of the event were very positive. Inspiring, and sometimes even contradictory, keynote speeches served as provocative inputs for the debates which followed. Then we were back to plenaries for more inspiration and back to interactive sessions for sharing and reflection.

Perfect mix of attendees

This year participants came from ever more diverse backgrounds, probably thanks to the proximity of the event to the heart of Europe. The majority of them were from telecentre networks and NGOs working in the digital inclusion field. However, we also welcomed policy makers from Belgium and the EU, companies, libraries, youth centers and public authorities. Furthermore, I-LINC stakeholders and young ambassadors added to the lively mix.

We were honored to have the Belgian Minister for Development Cooperation and Digital Agenda Mr. Alexander De Croo who confirmed his government’s commitment to develop digital skills for all as one of the main pillars of Digital Belgium.

“Governments think that to ensure that everyone benefits from the digital opportunities it is enough to put the infrastructure in place – the networks, the equipment. This has to change! Education, throughout life, is the infrastructure of the future and governments need to invest in it.” said Mr. De Croo.

Despite his busy agenda he took the time to reply to questions from the audience. He is seen as the first minister who actually knows what digital literacy is about and understands the need to develop skills hand in hand with deploying digital infrastructure.

From the private sector, we had Saskia Van Uffelen from Ericsson BeLux. Did you know that she is actually one of few non-tech people in the company? Her background as a teacher allows her to see skills development in the workplace from a different angle! From CISCO we had the pleasure to welcome Karsten Simons who spoke about CISCO Networking Academies making a difference all around the world. He and Martine Tempels from the Belgian telecom Telenet both agreed that soft skills such as communication, media literacy and critical thinking are equally important in today’s workplace.

Interactive sessions and discussions

Maybe the best part of this year’s conference was the interactive part – everyone was genuinely eager to contribute and exchange.  In the Future Trendspotting session participants were asked to let their imagination free and picture the future workplace. They discussed what new alternatives are there to the 9-17h working day and whether we are ready to meet the challenges.

The parallel “How to…” sessions were very practical and hands-on, and session leaders gave very concrete and applicable advice to their audiences. Most attended sessions were “How to run an hour of code” and “How to run a hackathon” with “How to run a digital storytelling service for migrants” also attracting a lot of interest. It was really difficult to choose!

On the second day of #TEAC16 we also had a discussion panel that focused on youth employability and specifically on the I-LINC platform – a place for various stakeholders from formal education, non-formal training, employers’ world and youth to come together and engage in a debate. The platform 2.0 is being launched with more possibilities to exchange good practices, share about recent policy developments and make new contacts. The panel brought together representatives of EU Commission, education and industry to discuss this burning issue. The video of this panel will soon be available on the I-LINC platform.

Unconference and project lightning talks

During the Unconference session participants were able to put on the table whatever burning issue they have in their hearts and minds. Some discussed digital skills particularly relevant for SMEs, which provide 2/3 of all workplaces in EU. Others cared about media literacy for youth in the context of the refugee crisis. Other topics included entrepreneurship, DigComp, Open data, etc.

The conference closed with six project lightning talks about coding, teachers’ online collaboration skills, organising a hackathon, enabling parents to understand their kids’ digital life better, and more, and more.

The lively event was filmed and many of the participants were asked for statements about the conference itself, Telecentre Europe network and other topics of interest. Videos will be available soon on our YouTube channel.

We are already looking forward to our #TEAC17 in Barcelona!

TEAC16 Event Press Release

91% of all citizens in Flanders are connected to the internet at home, 78% own a laptop and 58% are the proud owner of a tablet.[i] These recent figures show that we all like to buy the latest digital devices and update our homes with the latest technologies, but digital skills are indispensable in the workplace as well. The latest digital evolutions translate themselves into new demands at the office, for both the employer and employee. Which skills are increasingly important in the job market and how will organisations adapt to future technological changes? These are among the issues that will be discussed at the Telecentre Europe Annual Conference jointly organised with the first I-LINC international event in Ghent from October 6-8.

Belgium assumes leading role in Europe

Experts, stakeholders and organisations from across Europe will gather in Ghent to discuss the future digital challenges and the impact this will have on employment. Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Digital Agenda, Alexander De Croo, will talk on the opening day of the conference about the pioneering role Belgium plays with regard to digital innovation and entrepreneurship within organisations and government.

Alexander De Croo said, “The development of digital economy will define our future welfare. Governments and institutions must show courage and ambition. Belgium has the potential to become one of the leading countries in Europe, but only if it decisively focuses on digital frameworks. Therefore, our strategy ‘Digital Belgium’ focuses on bringing digital skills to people and linking them to the right job. Together with other public and private organisations such as Telecentre Europe, we aim to be one of Europe’s leading digital countries by 2020.”

Ghent invests in e-inclusion

Nine out of ten future jobs will require digital skills. This does not only demand a systematic policy on a national and international level, but also requires the support and effort of local governments. Thanks to their commitment, more and more people are given the chance to unlock their digital potential, regardless of age, social or cultural background.

The City of Ghent has been committed to e-inclusion for the past ten years with Digitaal.Talent@Gent, a program in collaboration with Digipolis and the Public Centre For Social Welfare. All citizens of Ghent can develop their digital skills through a variety of projects. Even vulnerable groups such as the underprivileged, senior citizens and people with disabilities are given the change to discover their digital talent.

Deputy Mayor of Ghent, Martine De Regge explained, “Every citizen of Ghent deserves to have access to the digital world. In order to guarantee access for everyone, the city has set up 75 telecentres across Ghent. You can visit these centres if you want to use a computer with an internet connection, but also if you want help or advice from one of the computer volunteers.”

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Beside Deputy Prime Minister De Croo, fellow Belgian Saskia Van Uffelen – CEO of Ericsson BeLux and ‘Digital Champion of Belgium’ – will address the future revolution in the job sector caused by these digital changes. Recent research has shown that 65% of the jobs of today will not exist anymore by 2020[ii]. How do we prepare ourselves for these changes and make sure that our employment rates keep rising, as well as productivity rates?

Experts and academics will share their ideas and vision with members of the European Commission. Not only business and the private sector, but the public sector too will need to stimulate and encourage companies and organisations to adapt to these future digital changes in the workplace.

Putting words into action

The so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution” is one of the major challenges and opportunities for Europe. It describes the changes ahead as a result of new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, 3D Printing, Drones, Robotics, the ‘Internet of Things’ and many other emerging technologies and working practices.

Laurentiu Bunescu, CEO of Telecentre Europe added, “This event also presents the first I-LINC international conference. I-LINC is a platform and a community of experts and organisations that foster employment and entrepreneurship through digital skills. We help young people and interested organisations in addressing employability related issues in the light of these emerging technologies.”

The conference brings together organisations, governments and industry to share ideas and to brainstorm the future challenges for jobs and employment in the context of these future changes. Through debates, hands-on workshops and enticing talks, the event aims to set out the future synergy between work and digital skills.

Māra Jākobsone, Chair of Telecentre Europe said, “A key aspect in teaching skills, which was long underestimated, is finally being recognized by the new EU skills agenda – the importance of lifelong and non-formal learning opportunities. The non-formal education community, represented by Telecentre Europe members offers efficient and fast ways to upgrade digital skills requested for job through mentoring and project-based learning. At the event, more than 120 delegates from 70 organisations in 25 countries will share their experience of helping European citizens to acquire digital skills for future work.”

[i] IMinds, 2016

[ii] World Economic Forum 2016

See full Press Release

For those TEAC16 participants who come to Ghent earlier and have registered before August 31, TEAC16 host organization Digipolis offers a guided visit to three different Telecentres in Ghent. Learn more about Ghent telecentres.

by Sara Van Damme, Digipolis Gent

Telecentres were created all over the city for  people who don’t have access to a computer at home or at work. Apart from free internet access, the centres allow citizens to work on their digital skills through guided sessions or interactive and hands-on workshops. You can find telecentres in libraries, community centres, local service centres and many more public city facilities.

These telecentres aim to be approachable and easily accessible for people from all social classes and backgrounds, so that everyone has a chance to learn how to work with a computer, write an email or use a certain computer program.

Although all telecentres offer the same basic digital facilities, we do distinguish three different types of telecentres, each with a different focus:

1. The first type provides free WIFI, so that visitors can surf the internet and access their email free of charge. Moreover, the basic Microsoft Office programs allow visitors to type out texts and use Word or PowerPoint for example.
2. In the second type of telecentre there will always be a supervisor present, who will happily assist and help the visitor with his or her requests and wishes. E.g., (s)he could show them how to send an email, how to work with a tablet, or secure their ICT software with the latest virus scanner.
3. The last type of telecentres offer digital courses and lessons on top of all the advantages from the other two types of telecentres.  Some courses are free, others require a rather small charge (max. 1 Euro per hour).

Thanks to these three different types of telecentres, we can help and improve the digital skills of all citizens in Ghent, no matter what their needs or requirements may be.

Needless to say that we cannot organize this all by ourselves and depend on the support, help and open mentality of all the supervisors working in the centres. These supervisors are a diverse group of volunteers, who all have one very important thing in common: they like to help people. Their enthusiasm and drive encourage us daily to think and dream big and they allow us to keep on growing and expanding the program.

Together, we will continue to join our efforts and help to reduce digital exclusion.