In the context of Telecentre Women: Digital Literacy Campaign of Telecentre.org, on International Women’s Day March 8, commissioner Neelie Kroes, EC Vice President and in charge of the Digital Agenda for Europe, opened the launch event of Get Online Week 2012 at Telecentre-Europe AISBL‘s Belgian member organization Interface3, a telecentre network run by women for women.

She also participated in an interactive, participatory workshop session with demonstrations of Skillage (lead by Telecentre-Europe) and Internet buttons (lead by Tori Flower from  Liberty Global) and creative methodologies (lead by Cheryl Miller from Greenlight for Girls and Melodie Imbach from Interface3) used by digital inclusion practitioners to engage and empower users.

Underneath is a first 3minutes news footage released by EbS (a full edited version on the launch event will follow soon)

In the video, we can see some excerpts from Neelie Kroes’ opening speech: “How do we get more girls involved? If you allow me to say, there are three ways. Number one: we must show the many ways in which ICT empowers women, this is very important. Whether it is helping people with family commitments, work or training from home. Or a tool for self-expression: ICT can help women. Already we are seeing more and more websites delivering for women, sites like Mums net or Pinterest. But I am convinced we can go much further. Because it is in our interest. And because there’s a virtuous circle here: the more women see that ICT is delivered for them, the more they will want to get involved.”

And she continues: “Technology is not a boy’s world. We need to bring together the ICT revolution and the gender equality revolution. Today there is a revolution, a positive revolution and it is the part of solving the problem that we are facing today. If we could just be successful in that combination, that the exponential growth in ICT could just be governed by more women laws. If you believe in those ideas, sign up to and join the movement of digital women.”