We are living in an era in which digitization is pervasive. Anyone must be appropriately educated on the digital front both for work but also for education, for access to public services or for being adequately informed. Unfortunately, many European citizens do not have sufficient digital skills. As The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) shows, 44% of European adults do not have basic digital skills.
This problem obviously also affects the business world. If employees do not have adequate digital skills, for the company is difficult to enter the world of e-commerce and compete with the large multinational companies.
It is essential for the European community to tackle this problem, which is why the European Commission has included in the European skills agenda and in the digital education action plan the goal that by 2025, 70% of European adults have basic digital skills. To be competitive on the world market, the European Union must have a strong digital economy with adequately trained workers.
The European Digital Learning Network, together with partners from Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain, are carrying out the KeepUp project which aims to give small businesses the opportunity to train on the digital front and thus have the opportunity to enter the market of e-commerce, which grows exponentially every year. The project started in November 2020 and will end in January 2023.The topic of the online teaching modules are:
- Learning materials on digital competences
- Learning materials on e-commerce skills
- Learning materials on climate adaptive entrepreneurial knowledge
As can be read from the topics that will be delivered throughout the project, KeepUp also deals with adaptation to climate change. Many small businesses, especially in rural areas, have to deal with the effects of global warming such as: fires, floods or droughts. One of the goals of KeepUp is to give them the tools to cope with this change.
Digital technologies and skills can support scientific activities for monitoring climate change, analyzing data for example on climate, atmosphere, soil, forests, natural resources, pollution, etc. With the availability of increasing amounts of data, technology experts are starting to offer not only innovative solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change, but also to monitor and adapt. This helps generate possible sustainable actions and avoid huge environment disasters.
For this reason, the people, and companies to which the KeepUp project is aimed must increase their digital skills, to be able to analyze data and to become more resilient to climate change.
Furthermore, the European Union is also already making efforts to adapt to climate change by adopting a strategy to become climate resilient by 2050.
To find out more about the KeepUp project visit:
- the site: www.keepup-project.eu
- the Facebook page @keepuprojecteducation
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