Technology changes have greatly impacted the way that people work across the world. According to a report from the European Commission, 87% of people in EU member states used the internet regularly in 2021. However, only 54% of the population polled have at least basic digital skills and less than one third of Europeans possesses above basic digital skills (26%). This gap in digital skills makes interacting in a digital society difficult. Companies across Europe, including Certiport, are working to close this digital skills gap and create lifelong digital learners. Many of these organizations are coming together to empower Europeans with digital skills through ALL DIGITAL Weeks.
What Is ALL DIGITAL Weeks?
The ALL DIGITAL Weeks campaign is one of the major pan-European awareness campaigns focusing on digital skills as a means to increase inclusion, empowerment and employment. Since 2010, the campaign has helped almost 1.5 million people to get online for the first time or enhance their digital skills.
Taking place at digital competence centres, libraries, community centres, schools and other venues across Europe, ALL DIGITAL Weeks helps more than 50,000 Europeans annually learn and be inspired by what technology can do for them, focusing on the opportunities given by digital transformation and its effects.
What’s Happening for ALL DIGITAL Weeks?
Formerly a one-week event, this year’s ALL DIGITAL Weeks campaign will run for three weeks from 17 April until 7 May 2023. This year’s event will focus heavily on the European Year of Skills, promoted by the European Commission. Issuing a call to “Enhance your digital skills”, the European Commission is calling for all European citizens and residents to learn new skills, both basic and advanced, to be able to face digital transformation with confidence.
The launch event will start on 19 April 2023 at 14:00 CET, with a keynote speech from Nicolas Schmit, EU Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights. Other keynote speakers and panelists include Jeremy Rollison, Senior Director of EU Government Affairs at Microsoft, and Gina Ebner, Secretary General for the European Association for the Education of Adults.
Luckily the launch event is just the start of this year’s engagement opportunities. International events covering various topics are scheduled between 19 April and 5 May.
Find one that works for you:
- The role of teachers in green and digital transition: the contribution of social dialogue: 20 April
- IDEAHL project presentation and co-creation session: 21 April
- Enhancing critical thinking through media literacy: CrAL project: 26 April
- DigComp use in training organizations: 26 April
- Digital learning and education in museums: 27 April
- Cyanotypes (BluePrint Project): 2 May
- EQUALS-EU webinar: Closing the skills and gender gap in STEM: 3 May
- Dyne.org webinar: Introducing the interfacer platform: 3 May
- CLIP Project: The importance of visual media literacy and how it can be taught: 3 May
- (Digi)taal@work: 4 May
- Communicating our humanity-Media and its (mis)uses: 4 May
- Closing event: 5 May
It’ll be a busy three weeks, but with lots of valuable information to empower Europeans and educators with knowledge for digital skills success. If you’re interested in registering, you can see an overview of all the week’s international events here.
How Do I Get Involved in ALL DIGITAL Weeks?
In addition to the international events listed above, regional ALL DIGITAL Weeks activities will happen in many European countries throughout the three weeks. If you’d like to see which regional or national events are taking place near you, you can find more information here. You check out the event map or scroll through the full line-up.
We can’t wait for you to join us throughout all the ALL DIGITAL Weeks events. Don’t forget to follow along on social media with the hashtags #ADWeeks2023 and #AllDigitalWeeks.