Welcome session
Day 1: September 24th
TEAC15 was opened by a surprise dance 2. Secondly, while small and medium enterprises
(SMEs) are providing most of the jobs in EU,
performance. Led by their choreographer
there is a big digital skills gap between large
Milica Nesic, young and talented dancers from
and small companies. Telecentres can put their
Belgrade’s „Dance Factory“ introduced the topic
heads together to see how they can support
of the conference through a dance performance,
SMEs.
reflecting on how we have changed with technology
and how important it is that all can benefit from it.
3. In third place, we want to see more people
creating, rather than only consuming, digital
Speakers: Dr. Mara Jakobsone (TE’s Board Chair)
content. TE is already working on initiatives
and Gabriel Rissola (TE’s Managing Director)
that go in this direction such as multimedia
academies and coding projects for telecentres.
Telecentre
Europe
Board Chair Dr. Mara
Jakobsone welcomed It is also widely recognised that most of the learning
all the participants in of digital skills is happening outside formal education
the name of Telecentre and this trend is going to continue. This means that
Europe. Looking back to telecentres are already playing a role and have an
the first TE conference advantage. As Mara Jakobsone puts it:
in Riga in 2008, she
highlighted the fact
that we have advanced
“Telecentres
are
good
at
quickly from the 2008
experimenting with new ideas and
event’s motto of “Every
projects. Our organisations are living
European Digital”. That
labs that constantly put forward new
aspect of providing
training modules, pilots and projects.“
digital inclusion to all citizens is still very much our
aim, but we are increasingly going beyond this aim
and into the realm of digital empowerment. In
addition, now we know that not only citizens, but Telecentre Europe’s Managing Director Gabriel
also organisations, need to improve their digital Rissola continued to reflect in his speech on European
skills base to benefit from digital technology. Commission’s Digital Market Strategy. After
explaining to the audience the reasoning behind EC’s
Telecentres can help make this happen.
vision and strategy, he said that, notwithstanding its
The European Commission launched in March 2015 evident strengths, it can at times be reductionist.
their Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy. The DSM The DSM strategy talks about citizens principally
puts a lot of emphasis on the economic factors but as consumers, either in the market sense, or of
also places them in relation to people of all age e - g o v e r n m e n t
What
groups who need to acquire digital skills to make services.
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the strategy work . If we read carefully the DSM Telecentre Europe
we see that telecentres, NGOs, libraries and non- would like to put
formal training providers are already contributing forward however,
to the strategy. Much more can be done however, is that citizens
seen
as
if we focus our efforts on the three following points: are
“prosumers”: not
1. Our members are already active in the area of only
consumers
training smart and protected online customers but also creators of
and raising awareness amongst children and services, products
young people. But telecentres can partner with and ideas.
private organisations to continue working on
this important issue.
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More information can be viewed in the Infographic of the European Commission titled “Digital skills for a Digital Europe” at this link.
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