The Internet has become the new work space. Who doesn’t miss the email that doesn’t arrive to finish a project? Or those websites that you visit regularly to find out the state of the art on a given subject? It is no longer just a macro library where you can find information. It is where we spend time that is worth its weight in gold.
On October 17 and 18, project partners of the Open Minds initiative gathered in Bucharest for a crucial project management meeting hosted by the Romanian partner, the Association of Community Development Consultants. Attended exclusively by project partners, the meeting focused on assessing progress, planning future activities, and strengthening collaboration to achieve the project’s goals.
It was in the 90s that the first wave of the Internet hit our associations. We had to have a website to present our missions and increase the visibility of our actions. It was at this time that a young start-up, Google, was born. The company owes its runaway success to the power of its search algorithm. Today, these famous automatic calculations punctuate our daily lives, and those of our audiences. It’s not a question of rejecting everything out of hand – we don’t have the means to do that anyway. It’s a question, at our level, of giving shape to this movement by decoding it. It’s also about committing ourselves to fundamental values such as defending our (digital) freedoms and making conscious choices about the way we get information, how we buy, how we entertain ourselves and how we access culture.
The Covid crisis has given a powerful boost to digital technology in general and distance learning and working tools in particular. It’s a fact that the digital transition has become unavoidable. Its rapid deployment during the pandemic confirms the omnipresence of American technologies on all digital fronts.
In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, the socio-cultural sector stands at the intersection of tradition and innovation, heritage and progress. However, amidst the digital transformation sweeping across society, this sector often finds itself grappling with unique challenges, from limited resources to outdated technologies.
OpenMinds is an ambitious project that aims to bridge the digital divide and promote digital inclusion among the various strata of European society. Its main objective is to empower social and cultural actors, as well as the general public, by equipping them with the digital skills needed to successfully navigate the digital age. This project not only focuses on providing technical knowledge, but also aims to foster an open and receptive mindset towards technology and its possibilities.