Europe has been marked in recent decades by a reduction of participation in social life, above all among young people. According to official data about the 2014 European Parliament elections, what comes out is that young European citizens have lost interest towards society and related issues. Furthermore, the unemployment rate, an important measure of a country or region’s economic health, is still high in the European Union countries, even though it is falling from the 2013 peak. In order to contrast this trend, European Union supports startups, social enterprises and entrepreneurial initiatives as long as they have a social impact and generate profit not only for entrepreneurs, but also for the entire community as well. Youth is the key to making the economy start over.#PlayEurope project aims to contribute to build a new generation of active citizens. The project’s main objective is to use the cooperative enterprise model and the social entrepreneurship education to raise awareness among young people about current social issues and democratic participation, using an alternative approach that combines education and entertainment, in order to be more attractive for the target group (university students & unemployed young people between 18‐30 years). The project – following an edutainment approach - provides young people with an innovative training programme to enhance and promote their competencies in order to become contributing entrepreneurs, responsible and critical citizens.The consortium is composed by 9 partners from Italy, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Romania and Estonia, representing different types of organizations: 3 SMEs, 2 Private Universities, 4 NGOs. All of them have long experience in EU projects and are deeply involved with young people, social issues, active citizenship aspects, EduGames and innovative teaching methodologies. #PlayEurope produces two main resources:- The Manual of Success Stories on Social Entrepreneurship collects 10 success stories of social entrepreneurs to motivate and inspire young people to set their own social business;- The Step-by-Step Guide “Become a Social Entrepreneur in 7 days” represents a smart and user-friendly journey across Social Entrepreneurship, made up of 8 steps including tips, key business elements, infographics, interesting videos and educative games to foster young entrepreneurs' hard & soft skills.In addition, a Workshop is organised in each partner’s country, with the participation of more than 100 young people to practically test and improve even more the resources developed. Through effective actions and tools, partners’ intention is to show young people how and to what extent social entrepreneurship can be a concrete pathway to become better citizens.The results that the partners want to produce are: - improvement of specific soft and hard skills of students and unemployed young people, through their involvement in the online #PlayEurope Step-by-Step Guide; - enhancement of digital integration through non-formal learning; - increased motivation of young people in setting up their business through demonstration of inspirational examples of successful social entrepreneurs; - increased interest in social issues and democratic participation. As the main beneficiaries of the project are young European citizens, the activities aim to impact on them by stimulating their attention towards social issues, showing them how to concretely apply the competencies acquired with #PlayEurope project in everyday life, for example by thinking of starting a social business. The project also engages indirect beneficiaries, above all civil societies, schools, training institutions, public Authorities and NGOs that work closely with young people, through a promotion of an alternative method, by inviting teachers and youth leaders to use #PlayEurope informal learning approach to promote civic participation among their students.

One of the growing sectors of digital government is about open data as an extraordinary tool to detect main trends, de-structuring aggregated data, empowering citizens to understand how funds, actions, public decisions of decision-makers are implemented and eventually implemented. In Europe, the Public Open Data service infrastructure implements one of the key actions included in the Commission communication on Open Data of December 2011, and many are the actual platforms where open data are stored and easily accessible. However, there is a spread lack of culture/competencies in converting open data into useful service and a real support element for inclusive decision-making. This is particularly referred to all those people who have a leading role in local communities, namely: public decision-makers, cultural practitioners, non-profit leaders [from now on public makers]. Open data mining, services, manipulation can create operating platforms for citizens, entrepreneurs as well as public makers to adopt strategic decisions and make more our societies more transparent and inclusive. There is a ramping discussion about refugees, but much of the democratic debate about accountability has been left apart in favor of social emergences. At the moment, open data usage is very limited and fragmented in Europe with diverse examples of good practices, but also their total absence in any curricular activities. What is more, a comprehensive strategy about open data has proven in some countries to create bottom-up movements of citizens and public makers involved in peer-to-peer learning and investigation, creating concrete ICT tools to support public administrations, to understand how local project are run and developed and how money is actually spent. Public decision-makers, cultural practitioners, non-profit leaders [from now on public makers] have a great role to start strategic change, but they need professional training within an adult education sphere of up-skilling. The project Open data e-learning platform and digital tools for participatory decision making [OpenMakers] is an adult strategic partnership focused on digital active citizenship that aims to foster the usage of open data among public makers supporting their local work through innovative training in digital literacy combined with open data learning/usage. OpenMakers aims to broaden ICT competencies and skills of public admins, non-profit leaders, young professionals, project managers etc. creating sustainable and needs-focused learning patterns, enabling non-profits/public bodies/informal ICT groups to act at the local level through open data interpretation and management. Three are the most important results of the project: 1. An innovative, comprehensive and simplified step-by-step web-program (OER) on digital financing to run on a platform in order to guide through simplified graphics and monitoring/validation mechanisms in terms of open data learning and experimenting. (O1) 2. The creation of learning material for trainers (O2) and for target users (O3) and its conversion as an e-learning course that it is suitable for public makers. In particular, O2 material will strengthen the digital and open data knowledge of trainers, making them prepared in a field that it is generally left aside in terms of activities. A pilot testing phase will be defined through a triple pattern: - C1 training of trainers, targeting educational staff of each participating organization, in order to reach common outreach & standards. It will be connected to the methodology work of IO1 and to the practical outcomes of O2 & O3. - C2 training of learners: this training will focus on the final users and it will be crucial in order to pilot test learning methodologies, define local activities, etc. - Local activities referred to a blended-learning test of O3 material throughout the e-learning platform (O4), putting together trained educators and users and multiplying the educational effects. The overall methodology is inspired by the living lab approach, so that the actual learning is connected to concrete local actions about open data experimenting and implementation as democratic tools, promoting ad-hoc services. Substantially, introducing open data should make citizens and public makers change the way they normally think and interact, also in terms of changing the perspective of accountability and digital citizenship.

<< Background >>The E(U)-leaders project responds to the EU high priority on boosting the e-leadership and digital competences, thus amending the mismatch between the skills available and those demanded for digital transformation of the economy. Therefore, the aim of the project is to foster the competitiveness and productivity of businesses and organizations through the development of strategic e-leadership skills necessary for entrepreneurs/employers/leaders/managers ( as well as VET trainers, educators and mentors) to manage their teams effectively and efficiently within virtual working environments. The project will contribute to the development of a complex and reliable set of digital tools and approaches for e-leadership skills assessment, development, evaluation, and certification, thus addressing the needs of the labour market and supporting the digital transformation of businesses. In the current globalised environment, we observe the emergence of a new class of e-leaders, namely leaders who display strategic leadership, business and ICT savviness (www.eskills-guide.eu). Currently, there is a considerable growth of labour demand, as well as a high increase of ICT graduate entries in Europe, leading to an estimated growth of the IT workforce from 8.5 million in 2016 to 9.5 million in 2020. The 2017 Final report of the EC on “High-Tech Leadership Skills for Europe” clearly highlights that “Europe is required to generate around 50,000 additional high-tech leaders per year in the years up to 2025, or a total of around 450,000 until 2025, by providing them with relevant education opportunities and exposing them to the necessary work and leadership experience”. Furthermore, based on the Final Report on “Digital Organisational Frameworks and IT Professionalism” (February 2019), a number of 64,489 posted online vacancies for e-Leaders in Europe is being estimated for the year 2018. However, technology advancements have overcome barriers to communication and it becomes more and more common for business leaders to work flexibly across time zones to ensure the most effective maintaining of business operations. In virtual teams, there is a greater requirement for autonomy and thus, a greater need for communication, trust and cooperation between a team leader and the team members. In Europe, e-leadership skills are a major policy concern for the creation of employment opportunities, innovation, and growth. In more detail, a 2019 JRC report highlighted the necessity in promoting and developing ICT training on digital skills and telework within organisations for keeping up with changing and alternative ways of working. To briefly explain, less than 10% of personnel receive training for ICT skills in Cyprus and Greece, around 10%-25% of personnel in Slovenia and Portugal and above 30% of personnel in Netherlands and Germany. Eurostat published on April 2021, a statistical report on employed persons working from home as a percentage of the total employment from 2011 until 2020, by sex, age (15 to 64 years old) and professional status (%). Focusing on the latest trends, in Germany, the percentage of the employed people working from home increased from 5.2% in 2019 to 14.8% in 2020, in Greece from 1.9% to 7%, in Cyprus from 1.3% to 4.5%, from 14.1% to 17.8% in Netherlands, from 6.5% to 13.9% in Portugal and from 6.8% to 7.4% in Slovenia. With this in mind, the E(U) Leaders project is innovative as it will provide a holistic approach for the development of high-skilled and competitive leaders for the needs of the EU labour market. It will follow a thorough procedure for educating and certifying its target groups and offer a comprehensive package of educational tools and methodologies through a tailor-made E-Leaders High-tech Course which will be free-of-charge, available through a virtual environment and certify their knowledge and skills based on widely recognized quality standards.<< Objectives >>The aim of the project is to foster the competitiveness and productivity of businesses and organizations through the development of strategic e-leadership skills necessary for entrepreneurs/employers/leaders/managers, as well as VET trainers, educators and mentors, to manage their teams effectively and efficiently within virtual working environments. The project will contribute to the development of a complex and reliable set of digital tools and approaches for e-leadership skills assessment, development, evaluation, and certification, thus addressing the needs of the labor market and supporting the digital transformation of businesses. With this in mind, the objectives of the project are:•To create an e-leadership model by mapping strategic e-leadership skills, competencies and approaches organizations communicate within virtual working environments•To identify common high-tech leadership skills’ needs within virtual working environments, both at personal and strategic/organizational levels•To identify effective web-based tools and approaches in managing virtual working environments and teams successfully•To develop and assess e-leaders’ strategic e-leadership skills through web-based teaching and learning approaches•To create a certification framework which will define both the e-leaders curriculum and the skills assessment process.These indications imply that prioritization initiatives need to be made to support the digital transformation of businesses and enterprises. Therefore, in order to set up or manage a business, technological and business skills should be enhanced by skills that enable change, innovation of societal practices, attract, develop and manage (especially virtually) talents. To address these needs in the labour market, the E(U)-Leaders project addresses the common e-knowledge, e-skills and e-competencies needed by existing and would-be e-entrepreneurs/employers/leaders/managers/VET trainers/mentors/educators to lead in the digital economy. For this reason, the target groups who will benefit from the project products and take part in the projects’ activities are as follows:Primary:•Entrepreneurs/employers/leaders/managers leading teams in virtual business environments across different national contexts – prior, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic period: -SMEs (tech-based and non-tech-based organisations such as ICT companies, multinational organisations, etc.) -NGOs •Future entrepreneurs/leaders•Partner organizations Secondary:•VET trainers •VET mentors •VET training centres and other VET organisations•Chambers of Commerce and IndustriesThe expected impact on the target groups:•Improvement of high-tech leadership skills of end-users•Increased availability of reliable and accurate tools for diagnosis and improvement of strategic leadership skills •Increased skills of VET trainers, mentors and educators in using tools for assessment and development existing/aspiring leaders•Increased awareness of SMEs and NGOs on how to seize the opportunities in innovation/new technologies •Increased productivity of businesses, organisations, institutions run by highly-skilled professionals•Mitigating the digital gap in education and labour market•Incorporating new learning/teaching programmes and materialsThe project involves 7 organizations from 6 EU countries - CY, GR, DE, PT, NL, SI. Information about the EU support accompanied by the EU logo will be visible in all project products and in promotion materials used during the project’s implementation and beyond; available on project website as open source and on the project’s e-learning platform, without any financial restrictions.<< Implementation >>A short-term Joint Staff Training Event (C1) will be implemented, addressing entrepreneurs, employers, leaders, managers, as well as VET trainers, mentors and educators of the project partners with the aim to enrich their competencies and skills so that they can transfer in a self-sustaining way the training/learning approaches of the E(U)-Leaders’ project products in each partner country; it will provide added value to the E(U)-Leaders’ project in the following ways:•Transfer the training methodology and project results (materials and tools) to end-users: 14 in total•Each participant of the C1 activity will elaborate an evaluation report by assessing the products’ methodology and materials through providing their practical feedback and experience based on which the fine-tuning of the project products will take place•Based on the evaluation, EUROSC, with the contribution of TUV Cyprus will elaborate a summative report on the sessions, where the overall activity will be thoroughly described. It will also provide the partners with recommendations and conclusions for the successful practical implementation/transfer of the products in each country in the next phases of the project.The selecting criteria are as follows:•Proven experience in leading and managing virtual teams •Proven experience in the field of digital skills and other soft competencies•Experience in non-formal education methodology•Fluent communication in English (oral and written)•Good communication and interpretation skills•Good digital skills•Highly-motivatedEach participant (in case of external expert/collaborator) will have to sign a voluntary agreement with the national partner, who will then have to provide a copy of the agreement to the project coordinator and an official contract with the sending organisations, defining their involvement in the projects’ activities and the responsibilities of each party (participant and partner organization) regarding the mobility. Concerning the support and safety of the participants, every sending organisation will be responsible for organizing transport for participants, accommodation and money to cover transport, accommodation and subsistence costs. During the implementation of the mobility, the host organisations will assign 1 contact person who will be in constant contact with participants to guide them, solve any occurring issues and monitor the results and impact. Whenever additional actions prior traveling are needed (i.e. official document/ invitation from the hosting partners to the specific participant partner), these will be communicated in time among the two partners (participant & hosting organizations) and will be arranged within the needed deadlines. The participants of C1 will obtain Europass Mobility issued by hosting partners (EUROSC). Also, all project results will be pilot-tested be all project partners in the project countries, for improving the quality standards of the outcomes based on the end-users needs at national and European levels. Moreover, 6 MEs (5 national events and 1 international Final Conference) will be implemented towards the end of the project implementation, to implement the final version of all results to target groups, stakeholders, authorities, and end-users. All implemented activities will be enhanced through the use of various dissemination tools and channels, implemented by all project partners. Dissemination will maximize the promotion and exploitation efforts, through using social media, webpages, digital materials, articles, and press releases. Finally, to evaluate and fine-tune all elaborated materials and products, the partners will implement internal reviews with staff members of each partner organization, as well as piloting activities with the participation of target groups and stakeholders. Through these activities, remarks, comments, and suggestions will be collected in order to improve and fine-tune the materials of the project<< Results >>Five main project results will be developed: PR1: Guidebook of inclusion of best practices on suitable digital working environments •The Guidebook will include examples of good practices already established at a national and European level, promoting e-strategies and e-tools organisations adopt in their daily management for ensuring the efficient virtual working environment of their employees•The Guidebook will be addressed to entrepreneurs/employers/leaders/managers PR2: E-Leadership Model adopted within tech-based and non-tech-based organisationsThe aim is to identify the training needs, challenges and gaps entrepreneurs/employers/leaders/managers face when managing virtual working environments and teams. It consists of a set of focus groups implemented in the project countries, which will mainly focus on:•e-leadership styles•web-based teaching and learning approaches•remote strategies and culture •monitoring individuals progress remotely •the use of web-based tools (for measuring productivity, engagement, work progress, etc.)•managing virtual team interactions and well-being The results of the focus groups will be used for the development of the PR3: E-Leaders High-tech Course for entrepreneurs/employers/leaders/managers/VET trainers/mentors/educatorsPR3: E-Leaders High-tech CourseA set of modules developed to enrich high-tech leadership skills for entrepreneurs/employers/leaders/managers/VET trainers/mentors/educators (incl. mentoring methodology for mentors)•The High-tech Course will be available on the e-learning platform (PR4) •The High-tech Course will be developed based on the results of PR1&2PR4: E-learning platform for Leaders This will be basically the platform which will host the developed training materials of PR3 for the end-users (entrepreneurs/employers/leaders/managers/VET trainers/mentors & educators)PR5: Certification framework of e-leadership skills for defining the certification scheme, quality standards and requirements based on ISO/IEC 17024:2012, addressing entrepreneurs/employers/leaders/managers/VET trainers/mentors/educators

"The context of the project is essential to modernize the study process in all education stages by making it more convenient and accessible to individuals. Distance education, especially distance learning is a mode of delivering education to students, often using personalized approach. Distance learning provides students to complete the chosen study program irrespective of their disabilities, illness or any other personal reasons that prevent them from attending traditional on-the-ground courses. Another advantage of online learning is that it can be practiced virtually anywhere and anytime provided the learners have a PC and internet access. The current project addresses various segments of the target group, including elderly generation and those who need assistance in formulating their education and training needs. The main aim of the project “Developing EU through online innovation” was to develop seven thematic digital courses in 8 languages English, Italian, Spanish, Latvian, Greek, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Turkish - and disseminate the prepared courses in local communities. Each course consists of 15 units. All courses can be grouped according to the following themes in adult education: (i) career and business life, (ii) personal improvement, (iii) connecting work and private life. Each partner organization was in charge of developing one digital course. •Grobiņa Adult education centre developed program 1 - digital course ""Live online""•G.G. Eurosuccess consulting, LTD worked on creating program 2- digital course “Learn English online” •Superficie 8, LTD developed program 3 - digital course “Career skills advice “•Turgutlu Kaymakamligi was responsible for developing program 4 - digital course “Entrepreneurial skills “•Iniciativas de proyectos de formacion produced program 5 - digital course “IT skills “.•Iniciativi za grajdansko obshtestvo developed program 6 - digital course “Communication and self-improvement “• Eco Center Alapítvány worked on developing program 7 - digital course “Sustainable life “.Apart from the created 7 programs consisting of 15 chapters each, the project partners also organized seminars for adult educators. In each project meeting, there was one seminar, each touching a certain theme of adult education. There were 7 project meetings. The 1st project meeting was devoted to the analysis of the job market in each country. During the next project meetings partners analyzed 3 created chapters of each program. The working language was English and the chapters were created in English. If the chapters were accepted by the partners, they were translated in 7 native languages and placed on the project website www.adultcourses.eu During project meeting 6 alongside analyzing chapters 13 -15, project partners discussed how the created materials will be piloted. A group of adults piloted all the created programs and provided suggestions on how to improve the course materials. After the piloting stage the project partners improved their programs and in May multiplier events were organized in each project partner organization to disseminate the created 7 digital programs to the interested organizations and people. The last project meeting was devoted to summarizing the work done during the project and analysis of the multiplier events. It is expected that the created courses will be included in the list of courses adult centers offer to the public, thus more than a thousand participants will have an opportunity to raise their self-awareness and motivation to acquire new skills through digital learning and to improve their IT skills. That will lead to the sustainability of the produced project intellectual outputs. The created digital distance learning courses will be available to be introduced to any national or international adult education center. Another advantageous aspect of the planned intellectual outputs is that course materials will be prepared in 7 national languages of project partners and will be available to the public at the project website for 5 years. Potential long-term benefits are that the project will increase the educational offer in adult education by providing a new program for social integration process of disadvantaged groups from local to international level. It is also expected that the course participants will develop competencies of the 21st century in the virtual world. Developed intellectual outputs – course materials - will serve as a teaching resource after completion of the project. Another long-term benefit will be collaboration among students, a better relationship between students, teachers, and staff. Thus, also the social climate in the adult centers will have improved."

"According to ISCED, a high level of education has a significant impact on employment opportunities, which undoubtedly affects the quality of life of the population. However, it is estimated that 55 million people in Europe between the ages of 15 and 65 have problems understanding a simple text. These figures show how far we are from reaching the level envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty.Among the people with low educational level, a significant percentage are people over 45 years old, who need the motivation to rejoin the educational process and thus improve their skills to improve their situation in the labour market. A key role in this process is played by adult educators, the target group of this project. Although most of them are quite versatile with highly educated students, many do not know how to proceed with students with low-literacy level, nor which methodology to use to work with this kind of students. In this project, we start from the excellent results obtained in our previous Erasmus+ LearnersMot project, where the tools and materials developed within the project are being used successfully in several countries. LearnersMot2 will continue to focus on adult educators as a DIRECT TARGET GROUP and elderly low-educated and low-skilled workers as an INDIRECT TARGET GROUP, as the ageing of the workforce is one of the main demographic changes in EU countries. The ""silver economy"" is growing, which means that elderly people are seen not only as end-users but also as producers. (Memorandum on Silver Economy, Ljubljana, 2016).The main OBJECTIVE of this project is to provide adult educators with the knowledge and skills they need to create productive and effective learning environments for low-educated adults. LearnersMot2 intends to continue this work already started, focusing on the shortcomings identified during the implementation of the previous project, such as digital competences, permanent motivation and constructive feedback. The partners will use all the information gathered in LearnersMot as a basis and will take advantage of the free online educational platform already created, to which they will add the new materials created for this project. At the end of the project, the partners expect to obtain the following RESULTS: 1) concept map with indicators for the development of the 2) online course for adult educators, 3) online application for computer and mobile devices, 4) face-to-face training activity in Ljubljana to pilot test the developed material, 5) database with a collection of resources for adult educators, 6) blended learning course for adult educators, 7) 4 transnational meetings 7) 6 dissemination conferences. Regarding the METHODOLOGY used, each activity will be led by a partner who will provide the relevant guidelines. All partners will participate in the development of intellectual products, always under the supervision of the leader. Once the materials have been developed in English, they will be evaluated internally; the materials will be improved with the feedback received. Then there will be a pilot test, and finally, when the final version in English is available, it will be translated into the partners' languages. This will ensure that it reaches more educators in the partners' countries. This project is expected to have a high impact at the local, regional, national and European level. Due to the success of the previous LearnersMot project, the partners already have a network of contacts of educators interested in this topic, who have expressed their interest in LearnerMot2. The project will focus on fostering international cooperation for a greater exchange of good practices, experiences and knowledge about teaching adults with low educational level. By having the input of several countries, a common shared approach is guaranteed."