<< Background >>It is estimated that 80 % of care work is provided by informal carers in Europe. There are thousands of Europeans, mostly women caring for a family member with support needs and specially the older adults. Many of those women are out of the labour market and face challenges in accessing adequate resources, support services and social benefits. Leaving these informal carers without support exposes them to poverty, health problems and undermines gender equality. This situation is accentuated by an acceleration of the digital transformation in the healthcare sector which requires the ability to manipulate and use e-health services and related technologies, on a daily basis, to provide the older adults with an adapted level of care. And to be able to do so, informal carers need to access adequate and adapted training and skills development notably related to digital competences.The DIGITALIS project will focus on female informal caregivers (FICs) with special focus on those providing long-term homecare and who need to re-enter the labour market after a long period of inactivity. Within the “Informal care in Europe” (Verbakel and al., 2017) it was revealed that on average, 34.3% of the population in 20 European countries were informal caregivers and 7.6% were intensive caregivers (providing care for minimum 11 h a week) with a prevalence among middle-aged women (50-59 years old) who are likely to be the first to respond to higher demands for informal care, while they are also the major target groups in employment policies aiming for increased labour market participation. The DIGITALIS project will tackle two major needs of the target group:-Needs in terms of training opportunity: from a major data collection conducted in 2017 by COFACE Families Europe, it appears that almost 2/3 of the respondents were never offered the opportunity to take part in any training, or skill development. Within DIGITALIS, the training offer will be notably related to the daily usage of specific digital healthcare services that FICs have to manipulate to provide care to their older adults’ relatives. To be as close as possible to the everyday life and to the needs of FICs who will participate to the project, the national contexts and specificities associated to the digital healthcare environments will be analysed as those can vary from a country to another. -Need to enhance professional experience and diversify opportunities for employability after a long period of time out of the labour market: by providing long-term care, FICs have acquired informal learning in different fields related to care support and most of the time they are not aware of it. Through the project, those valuable experiences will be collected notably through co-creation workshops which will be conducted to better frame and support the development of the digital skills training programme content.<< Objectives >>The main objective of the DIGITALIS project is to empower female informal carers with the essential digital skills and knowledge to fully exploit the potential of digital healthcare services and technologies to improve their own professional situation as well as the quality of life and safety of their relatives.DIGITALIS will have the following Specific Objectives (SO) to support the achievement of the above main objective:SO1: Improve the digital skills and competences of female informal carers for employability through an adapted and tailored-made training programme in 2 Piloting Countries (Greece and Hungary);SO2: Define and validate a complete national digital healthcare services and technologies landscape and the related digital skills roadmap according to the female informal caregivers’ needs in 2 Piloting Countries (Greece and Hungary); SO3: Develop, test and assess innovative e-learning courses and modules based on social innovation and human-centered approaches to better respond to female informal carers learning needs;SO4: Structure the main results, lessons learnt, informal carers testimonies and policy recommendations into a practical guide to enable dissemination and replicability at the European level.Reach the identified objectives calls for transnational cooperation. The Cooperation partnership brings together a foundation, a research institute, SMEs and an association with complementary expertise from 3 European countries. Through this transnational partnership, which addresses common problematics in improving the digital skills and competences of informal carers for employability, the partners will join forces, pool their ideas and resources into DIGITALIS to capitalise on their past experiences from other European projects. Thus, the project will address the challenges of training and recognition of informal carers’ status on a European scale through two Pilot Sites: one in Greece and one in Hungary and will facilitate the large-scale transposition of the methods and contents developed through the creation of a scale-up and replication guide.DIGITALIS gathers 5 partners from 3 Programme Countries (GR, HU and IT), from public and private sectors and with a complementary expertise: biomedical research laboratory and biotechnology innovation centre (Fondazione Democenter-Sipe - DCS, IT, Private Foundation), medical research and health promotion (PROLEPSIS, GR, Research Institute), Technology Enhanced Learning Systems (PROMPT, HU, SME), informal carers network support (EPIONI, GR, national non-profit organization) and Customer Communications Management (CCM) and Digital Customer Experience (DOXEE, IT, SME). DCS and DOXEE have been already involved in a Horizon 2020 project respectively, but it would be the first time in an Erasmus partnership project. They will be fully supported by the rest of the consortium.<< Implementation >>The project will last 36 months (01/01/2022 – 31/12/2024) and 4 Project Results (PR) will be achieved. The methodology applied aims to design a digital needs and assessment scheme, adapted to female informal caregivers (FIC) to allow an adapting mapping and inventory digital health care services and digital skills (PR1– M9), to concretely develop a set of digital training content modules and sessions (PR3 – M29), to develop the e-learning platform to support the test and assessment of digital training content modules and sessions (PR3 – M29) and finally build a replication guide to scale-up the Project Results at the European level (PR4 – M34). The following implementation process will be conducted to reach the project objectives and deliver the planned results. The 4 PRs will enable DIGITALIS to reach the quality objective of the training approach and its adaptability to the specific FICs’ needs, conditions and interest. Each PR definition and implementation will be based on the previous one to ensure the coherence of the project implementation:- PR1 The coordinator DCS will design the common digital healthcare services and skills methodology aiming to assess the FIC’ digital needs. To do so, essential steps will be followed: (i) the elaboration of a digital needs and assessment scheme notably containing a digital needs survey for FICs, (ii) the recruitment of FICs and the assessment of their digital inclusion (equipment/facilities) and digital skills baseline, (iii) the inventory of the digital healthcare services and technologies in the 2 Pilot Sites countries (Greece and Hungary) and an adapted roadmap of digital skills and knowledge to the identified FIC’s needs. This general frame will be the basis content which will enable the development of PR2.- PR2 Based on PR1 outputs, PROLEPSIS will lead the development of a set of digital training content modules and sessions for FICs. The co-creation content development approach, which will involve the active participation of FICs will enable the production of tailored made training modules content which will be translated in English and reviewed. For the skills acquisition evaluation, dedicated scenarios will be designed by PROLEPSIS. Finally, translation and localisation of the learning content into Greek and Hungarian will be also produced within PR2.- PR3 PROMPT will propose several activities that will progressively lead to the development of the e-learning platform to support the test and assessment of the digital training content modules and sessions produced in PR2. A beta version of the e-learning platform will be developed in a first place to enable the integration of the training modules. A continuous optimisation of the platform will be carried on until a final version is delivered at the end of the DIGITALIS project. Within this PR, the mentors will firstly test the platform and the recruited FICs by each Pilot Sites will test and assess the training programme. The development and implementation of the interactive and animated videos to support the dedicated scenarios developed in PR2 for evaluation will be performed by DOXEE. The online course will be completely finalised based on the feedback received from the Pilots.- PR4 DCS will design a Replication Guide plan and produce dedicated material highlighting the main results and lessons learnt. This guide will primarily target similar associations in the EU that would be interested to replicate the DIGITALIS approach. A recipient list will be established during the project to ensure a broader transferability: members of EUROCARERS and the prelisted entities (see associated partners question) will receive direct access to the Replication Guide. This final Project Result will also provide policy recommendations and guidelines for improving the status of informal caregivers and their access to training opportunities in Europe and more largely, adult education programmes at the national and European scales.<< Results >>The key deliverable of the DIGITALIS project is an innovative blended learning approach proposing a modular digital skills training programme with tailored-made content, specifically designed by and for the female informal caregivers according to their national healthcare environment and context. The blended innovative learning approach relies on the co-creation content development method which involves two focus groups (one in Greece and one in Hungary, each composed of a core group of 3 volunteers’ female informal caregivers – 6 in total) who will actively contribute to the entire creation process of the training content. The core subject of the training refers to e-health services used notably by the older adults in their daily life. During the preparation phase, key e-health services categories and associated technologies have been pre-identified. They provide an initial pattern to frame the modular training programme. Those preidentified services and technologies will be finetuned after the digital needs and baseline assessment results analysis (PR1 – M9). It is then scheduled to organise 5 co-creation workshops with the focus groups (1 workshop per module to be created) in both Pilot Sites – 10 workshops in total (half a day each – from M10 to M18). Those workshops will gather the partners in charge of creating and providing the training content and the informal carers associations to structure the online modules content and to ensure that it is in line with the needs of the target group. Following this content development phase, a proof-ready e-learning platform using a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Open-Source solution (Moodle) settled in the frame of the Erasmus + Grandis XXI project (to be adapted to the DIGITALIS requirements within PR3) will support the following 5 preidentified modules (to be developed under PR2, modules to be delivered in M20):MODULE 1 – Basic digital skills and competences for caring for older adults (using the DigComp frame) MODULE 2 - Assistive technologies and health related information services MODULE 3 – Self-monitoring and disease management by using ICTMODULE 4 – Digital adherence technologies (smartphone-based technologies, digital pillboxes, etc.)MODULE 5 - Social networks, online communities for active and healthy ageingFrom Module 2 to Module 5, the content will be adapted to the national environment of the 2 Pilot Sites with the main objective to provide learning content combined with digital resources directly related to their national context. The DIGITALIS project will also provide tangible results in the field of Adult Education and Social Inclusion. The consortium aims to reach the following immediate results for at least 20 female informal caregivers who are members of EPIONI in Greece and 30 who are members of Önkéntes Központ Alapítvány (OKA - associated partner) in Hungary (50 in total) involved in the piloting phase:•A digital needs and assessment scheme (based on the DigComp frame) to evaluate the digital skills baseline of 50 informal carers in total;•An adapted mapping of digital healthcare services and technologies to FICs needs in the 2 Pilot countries;•A complete roadmap of digital skills and knowledge adapted to informal caregivers needs (also based on the DigComp frame) in the 2 EU Pilot countries;•5 co-creation workshops for the training content in both Pilot Sites – 10 workshops in total•A five-module digital skills training programme focusing on healthcare services and technologies in the 2 EU Pilot countries;•A thorough e-learning platform capitalizing on previous project developments to support the digital training content modules;•An evaluation frame to assess the digital skills acquisition by informal carers after participating to the programme and based on 5 persona-centred scenarios animated through 3 communication videos. •A replication guide to scale-up the project results at the European level

Our society is an ageing on one. According to the 2011 year EU census the ratio of the 65+ citizens is 17% and this ratio will be 29.9% by the year 2050. This situation means a huge challenge to the society and to the social care system too. Elderly people easily lose their quality of life, can cope harder with every day challenges and also can lose their personal autonomy as they rely on the help of other people to secure their everyday needs. Also a big issue is the lack of personal connections, interactions. Elderly people often have problems with travelling and in a longer term it can lead to the loss of friends. These people are important members of our society. They gained valuable experiences in their work, part time activities, they were attendants of many interesting or important historic events and it would be a great loss if these experiences and memories would disappear with their owners. Modern ICT devices and online services can help to prevent or defer the above detailed difficulties. Today's internet based services can help to stay in touch with friends and relatives, can provide health preserving services, can give platforms to share memories, hobbies and knowledge. With our project we helped elderly people to use ICT services to support their everyday life, to raise their quality of life and to help them to prevent their personal autonomy as long as it is possible. To reach this goal we elaborated an intergeneration study concept. In the frame of this we prepared a video guide for the younger relatives of seniors about how to teach the basics of IT to seniors. This intergeneration study concept gives the foundations for further learning of senior persons. In addition to this we prepared 60 video-based learning materials for older adults covering everyday issues that can be solved or managed by the help of online services (online shopping, communication etc). 20 videos cover international topics with local language versions and the rest cover local, country specific themes with only local language version. We also developed a special web platform after an international survey and needs analysis to host the teaching materials and to serve as a community building and knowledge sharing platform. By the development of this platform the ergonomic needs of the target group were taken in account.Finally, we prepared a guide for the seniors how can they leave their digital footprint on the internet. This intellectual output covers the topics of blog writing, commenting, photo and video making and safe browsing on the internet.With the project we managed to drive the attention of younger generations to the importance of intergeneration solidarity. We also helped the older adults to understand the benefits of the modern online services and gave them useful curriculums that fit their learning needs.

The AISAB Project addressed the need within the EU to improve the level of innovation and its impact, particularly in SMEs. Building on the work of other innovation projects and materials, it developed approaches to create the skills that support SME innovation from an HEI context and through VET. These complementary streams of work saw implementation of initiatives to drive innovation. These have been provided sustainably by embedding the outcomes in the day-to-day activities of HEIs and organisations delivering VET to SMEs. The project objectives were to develop learning materials aimed at enhancing student skills in assessing and implementing innovation, and to build tools that students can use to facilitate their impact when consulting in SMEs. The project also developed a toolkit for SMEs to self-diagnose their innovation practice and put in place business intervention approaches that can be used to enhance innovation practices in SMEs. The AISAB consortium brought together a mix of five higher education and three VET/SME Partners, with expertise in the development of skills for SMEs. All Partners have a focus on creating real impact for business growth through their activities. Together, they are experts in the development of VET learning materials, leading learning interventions for SMEs, and engaging with SMEs to facilitate business growth.In consultation with students in HEIs and SME organisations, the project developed materials and consultancy processes that deliver increased skills for innovation and impact, through the active use of those skills in SME organisations.The project adopted a practical approach that has resulted in HEIs adopting and embedding innovation modules in a way that will ensures their impact is sustained. Similarly, the project has provided tools for SME training and service providers, so that they become an integral part of their methodology and are sustained. All of these changes aim to create greater innovation in SMEs on an ongoing basis.

"IntroductionTwenty-first century Europe is experiencing an uplift in the health of its population, with adults living longer, healthier lives than ever before. This has an impact on the demographic profile of our communities, with a higher proportion of older adults among the population. The project is aligned with the problems caused by demographic changes all over the world where the number of older adults is increasing every year and creating serious load problems for accompanying social and health systems. This was recognised by the European Union Commission when it started a Research and Development programme called Active and Assisted Living in 2008 (www.aal-europe.eu), aiming to stimulate the development of ICT-based systems and new models of elderly care. These systems support the active ageing and wellbeing of seniors at home in order to avoid their hospitalisation, and to stay in their own house and environment as long as possible. The purpose of Grandis was to improve vocational education and training to optimise adoption and successful use of these systems.ObjectivesGrandis XXI. project aimed at providing a possible answer to the challenges of the ageing societies by developing curriculum and online course for the social caregivers of the 21st century based on a requirement analysis by involving the target group and beneficiaries from the partner countries. The main results of the project is the course ""Connected Care of Older Adults"" a competence-based, modular training programme designed for formal and informal carers. The course prepares carers for effective use of ICT-based tele-care and communication systems that help monitor, manage, and improve the ability of people to live independently and interact with their care network. It aims to equip carers with an understanding of the demand for new approaches to care and to enhance its delivery through the use of a variety of eHealth technologies and smart devices, like home appliance monitoring, activity sensor wristbands, movement monitors, and even some tele-diagnostic tools installed in the home. Topics addressed by the project:1. ICT - new technologies - digital competences2. Health and wellbeing3. New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training coursesTarget groups- Students of vocational education- Formal caregivers, care workers, informal caregivers involved in the long-term-care of their relatives- „Young” elderly people retired from related professions (e.g. teachers), who are interested in working as informal caregivers in online communities.PartnershipGrandis Consortium includes 8 organisations from 5 countries, among them vocational educational schools from Hungary, VET providers from Hungary and Ireland, universities from Spain and the United Kingdom, and a society with social activities from France. In the consortium experts from vocational and higher education, information technology, social care and gerontology worked together in the development of the planned intellectual outcomes.•Prompt-H Information Technology Training, Trade and Service LTD., Hungary•Szalézi Vocational School, Hungary•Veszprémi Vocational Centre Öveges József Vocational School, Hungary•Universidad Europea de Madrid, Spain,•Aston University, United Kingdom •The Irish Computer Society Ireland•Guimel Association, France•Corvus Adult Educational Provider, Hungary The beneficiaries of the project results in the long term are older adults from 55+ but with a focus particularly on those over 65.Results and impact attained, long-term benefitsThe indicators reached demonstrate the impact of the project: for about 700 older adults, 400 teachers and trainers, care workers were directly involved into the needs-analysis, the experiments and pilots and 48 Grandis certificates were issued in the five countries. The training program was built up in accordance with the educational initiatives of the European Union: EQF, ECVET and DigComp, what ensures the European wide usability and sustainability of the results.The long term benefits are supported by publishing the learning content under the Creative Commons license of ""Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International"". This license allows all European organisations to use, distribute, modify and even commercialise freely Grandis curriculum, learning content and is allowed to implement the training course in any type of e-learning systems, and to deliver the course in any kind of forms (face-to-face, online, blended form) regarding the special needs of their target group.Project portal: http://grandis.prompt.hu/ (dissemination platform for visitors)E-learning platform: https://moodle.grandis21.hu/Contact:: edu@prompt.hu"

Last year, in the 2017 Global Information Security Workforce Study (Center for Cyber safety and Education, 2017) a survey was carried out with 4,001 young people from the UK, USA, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Israel and the Netherlands. Among the results of that study, a 1.8 million information security worker shortage by 2022 was forecasted. On the other hand, nearly 90% of the global workforce is male. According to the results of the aforementioned study among the reasons why there are a lack of women in cybersecurity careers are that there are no female cybersecurity role models for girls to follow, and the cybersecurity stereotype is not what they want to be in the future. In fact, according to Janice Richardson, Senior Advisor of European Schoolnet: “Most young people (69%) haven’t met anyone who works in cybersecurity at all and even fewer (11%) have met a woman working in cybersecurity. But when they have, their opinion of the role skyrockets, with 63% of women thinking more positively about cybersecurity after meeting someone who works in the sector.” But there is a wide variety of different positions in cybersecurity industry: from security architects building a company's security system, to Digital Forensics analysts and researchers analysing data and evaluating its relevance to a case under investigation, or Chief Security Officers (CISO) in charge of aligning security with business objectives. Industry is calling for women within the cybersecurity industry to step up to give more realistic role models for girls. IT security sector is characterized for a need of continuous innovation which requires creativity, flexibility, and out-of-the-box thinking, which may be stimulated by diversity (Mannix & Neale, 2005). The low proportion of women in the field represents for the industry a lost opportunity. According to Janice Richardson, Senior Advisor of European Schoolnet, “schools and families hold the keys, since career choices are both contextual and cultural, efforts to influence them need to be made at a much earlier age. Any steps taken by employers and universities alone, will have minimal impact”(Kaspersky Lab, 2017). Schools have a big role to play in the mission to become cybersecurity attractive as a career path. And families play an important role too, and need to be informed not only about cybersecurity paths, but too about the talent shortage in the field which is expected to increase, and about the competitive salaries in the area. The low proportion of women in the field represents a lost opportunity to harness the perspectives and experiences of women in developing new solutions and approaches.The aim of this project is addressing the gender gap cybersecurity industry is facing by pairing with private sector firms and academic institutions and working with schools to foster cyber security careers and address the gender gap. Better information about cybersecurity careers could positively impact more young people choosing this path, and female models can motivate girls in cybersecurity education by: (1) the development of problem-solving skills by means of cybersecurity challenges; (2) using a cyber environment that combines problem- game-, and virtual reality learning methods; (3) based on female positive roles in cyber security careers; (4) giving useful information to schools about cybersecurity industry so they can inform students and their families.Resources and outcomes of the project will remain accessible at the Be@CyberPro Website: https://www.beacyberpro.eu/.Some relevant outputs of the projects are:•Educational platform on cybersecurity: A platform of open educational resources (OER) for training and awareness-raising for students and teachers, as well as an awareness-raising strategy and resources for families.•Be@CyberPro Videogame: An immersive multi-language experience to explore various cybersecurity professional profiles and challenges•The E-Books: One of them with didactical and methodological guidelines for teachers and families including best practices and associated educational material to use the Be@CyberPro videogame in the classroom. Another one is for inspiring young girls to learn more about cybersecurity and cybersecurity professions through role models. The consortium partners have already conducted interviews with amazing women from Ireland, Spain, Hungary, and Bulgaria working in cybersecurity, which are featured in the eBook as well!Universidad Europea de Madrid (Spain) has coordinated this project, along with all the participating partners: PROMPT-H (Hungary), Irish Computer Society (Ireland), European Software Institute – Center Eastern Europe (Bulgaria), Számalk-Salesian Post-Secondary Technical School (Hungary), 125th Secondary Comprehensive School “Boyan Penev” (Bulgaria), Munster Technological University (Ireland), Colegio JOYFE (Spain), and Universidad de Alcalá (Spain).