Keynote Address:

Annika Östergren PofantisEuropean Commission, DG Connect, Stakeholders Unit and Digital Futures Taskforce

Digital Champions

Annika Östergren Pofantis, European Commission, DG Connect

Digital ChampionsHelping every European become digital

Unlocking huge economic and social potential

Martha Lane Fox, UK Digital Champion, is the Chairwoman of Go ON UK which aims to make the UK the world's most digitally skilled nation.

#Connected Continent• Free public

access to computers & the internet in public libraries

• Help people acquire ICT skills

• Free wifi zones in rural and urban areas

The Romanian Digital Champion equipped 2,300 libraries with 10,000 computers.

Opening Up Education• Promoting early

adoption of digital technology

• Promoting online education

• Encouraging teachers to share teaching resources online

VP Kroes and Lord David Puttnam (IRE) met with students and Future Creators, who learn coding, film-making and app development to be encouraged to consider a "digital" career.

Basic coding skills

The Finnish Champion initiated the Rails Girls project, which aims to overcome the gender divide in technology.

The Belgian Champion has organised more than five CoderDojos, which aim to teach basic coding skills to children, teachers and CEOs. This session was for senior managers, but coached by children.

Hands-on social media workshops

The Austrian Champion’s initiative Digitalks aims to raise awareness of new digital technologies such as wikis, blogs, social networks and mobile platforms.

The School Dance

The Slovak Champion runs a project connecting 300 schools and kindergartens. Young people learn in a fun way the basic principles of how to create a team, record a dance video and create an interactive poster through technology.

Grand Coalitions for Digital Jobs and Skills

In Poland the main tasks of the Coalition are to broaden digital participation, increase trust, raise awareness of the benefits of internet literacy and to ensure broadband access.

The Champions have been instrumental in the launch of Grand Coalitions for digital skills and jobs in Poland, Spain and Lithuania.

Promoting entrepreneurship, start-ups & innovation

• The Bulgarian Digital Champion has established a Start-Up Advisory Board with prominent entrepreneurs and in February 2013 she ran a start-up week.

• The Cypriot Champion runs ICT innovation competitions.

Fighting youth unemployment

The Belgian Champion organised a competition with an organisation to make an app to better link young people with job opportunities. This app is now in production.

#DigitalChampions

• Digital Agenda Europe http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/digital-champions

• Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Champions

• Twitter@DigitalAgendaEU@AnnikaOP#DigitalChampions

•  Emailannika.ostergren@ec.europa.eu

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