It is perhaps easy in 2017 to forget that digital empowerment is still vital for society, but 24 National Partners, who have been with us for many previous Get Online Week (GOW) editions, have joined forces again to lead the GOW campaigns in their countries.

Together with their 4,000 partner organizations, including public authorities, IT-companies, NGOs, libraries, and educational institutions, GOW17 National Partners will involve more than 70,000 people and reach hundreds of thousands.

The main topics for this year’s campaign are Cybersecurity, e-Services, Employment & Entrepreneurship. In the spirit of the GOW campaign to tackle the digital transformation, our partners have prepared an array of events both at national and local levels to include various audiences and support them in their online journeys.

Well connected to the scope of the campaign, Copyright and intellectual property will be highlighted within the campaign events, through a partnership with Mozilla Foundation. Their Reform Copyright initiative raises awareness on the need to update and harmonise the copyright rules to create room to create, share, and learn on the internet.

Most of the partners will address all the topics, at different levels and scopes. In Latvia, LIKTA starts the Week traditionally with the big high level launch event, and devotes each day to a specific topic, such as Digital skills for digital jobs for youth; ICT security day, Digital skills for SMEs. In Russia, the themes will vary from Media Safety and Mobile Learning to Job Online and Internet and Coding training, and activities, developed by PH International and their partners, will include, among others, IT career guidance, video lectures for school kids on start-ups, and an online game on entrepreneurship.

To facilitate the campaign at a national level, partners have prepared easy-to-use plans and scripts. Thus, through and for its 11 networks in Spain, the Spanish Association of Telecentre Networks developed several activities. One of them, Connection and discussion with experts is structured as an action, in which the protagonism is shared between an expert (via handouts) and users. They will talk about a certain subject, providing and clarifying concepts, offering solutions, advice, practical applications.

Promotion and public awareness of the campaign and its messages will have different approaches in each country and will engage society and organisations that work to support citizens with technology.

In collaboration with their major national media partners, Telecentar in Croatia wants to raise public awareness about the key role of digital technologies in a modern society; in addition to online campaign, they will produce and broadcast radio and TV programmes.  In Czechia, NCBI will lead an online awareness campaign on Cybersecurity with an emphasis on personal data protection in relation to digital skills for employment. GOW in Hungary will also centre around promotional activities: ComNet will co-operate with the public television to make a 15-20-minute video, covering the topics of online administration, e-commerce, safety online for seniors, digital welfare and improving digital competencies.

Use technology safely

The first theme of the campaign is Cybersecurity. It is increasingly seen as critical for national security and for companies, but perhaps it is most vital to ensure that society trusts technology and that citizens know how to protect themselves.

In Estonia, SWA will promote safe and skillful online behavior and organise a Wise Youtuber 2017 contest. SDC in Germany will hold a webinar for educators to teach them about secure apps for children and which apps collect the most data from them. Programa Escolhas in Portugal will offer a workshop on Cyberbullying. HePIS will run an Online campaign in Greece to enroll over 500 candidates in online courses offered by CISCO in Cybersecurity. In Sweden, Sambruk will focus on understanding, utilizing and protecting one’s eID, thereby fostering trust and confidence in Internet based services and information, as well as in public e-services. Training on copyright and intellectual property on the internet will be conducted in Spain and Russia.

A lot of activities, offered during the GOW, combine the topics of Cybersecurity and e-Services, and security for online banking is put forward in a number of countries. Thus, in Lithuania,  LiA in partnership with the association of Lithuanian banks, will organize webinars on safe issues of financial literacy and data privacy, e-banking services online, and direct meetings with experts in the public libraries. FIT in Ireland will run training programmes with sections on ‘Safety & Security Online’ and ‘How to’, showing how to bank online, book airline tickets, get insurance, etc.

Keep up with e-services

The second theme of Get online week 2017 encompasses not only government services such as tax and benefits, but also personal financial services such as online banking and e-commerce.

Telecentre-Danmark’s goal for the GOW17 is to promote the advantages of digital solutions within e-commerce, new methods of payment with the focus on payment through smartphones and e-health in Denmark, which will be done though trainings and a special TV programme. All those who will be attending GOW events in Romania, will be introduced to a new e-government service, which facilitates online payment by any citizen or company of over 60 types of different taxes. In Macedonia, OtW will organize meetings with representatives from government institutions and civic organizations and persons with disabilities on the accessibility of e-government services.

Learn new skills for jobs and new business

Finally Get Online Week will support Employment and Entrepreneurship critical for the ongoing economic recovery across Europe.

The focus of the Get Online Week in Slovenia will be digital jobs. Simbioza Genesis will promote digital jobs among students and the unemployed and offer training on gaining most necessary digital skills for young people who are entering the labour market. In Albania, AIS organize meetings with high school students to show them the benefits of having good digital skills in the most of the today’s career profiles and also to encourage them to specialize in ICT and Computer Sciences. Activities on skills for employment and entrepreneurship in Italy will target secondary school and university students, young professionals, as well as entrepreneurs from micro, small and medium-sized firms. Topics addressed are the new digital professions born around social media, data security, web marketing and how to exploit social networks for professional-business purposes.

In Serbia, IAN and its partners will put focus on raising awareness about the importance of IT skills and starting with learning these skills from the primary school. IAN will continue with the competition Best Coding for kids, where kids from primary school will learn basics of coding during the GOW and after that compete with their apps for the award.

In Poland, FRSI prepared ready-to-use workshop scenarios for its partners to encourage users to increase their entrepreneurship based on their hobbies. The plan includes a catchy quiz with questions about skills and online sources, a short presentation of local guests, and then participants learn where to find tools or information that will help them share their knowledge and passion and how to monetize it.

Get Online Week 2017 will bring organisations across Europe together to support citizens to be better able to protect themselves online, to understand more about doing government and financial transactions online and to be empowered to create new career opportunities.

Would you like to join? There are a few options to be part of the GOW campaign:

• Get in touch with your National Partner and join an existing partnership. See all the partners here.
• No National Partner is registered in your country yet? Contact us at gow@telecentre-europe.org, if you want to become one. For the first time, the call for National Partners is open outside of the Telecentre Europe membership!
• Organize GOW activities independently and let us know about them.