The CORA Project Management Team (aconium and Intercommunale Leiedal) participated in the Like! project interim meeting and steering group meeting with the aim of exchanging knowledge and enhancing synergies between the two transnational projects.
CORA Project
CORA (COnnecting Remote Areas with digital infrastructure and services) is an Interreg NSR 2014-2020 project that revolves around stimulating digital infrastructure and services in rural areas and comprises a transnational consortium with 18 partners from 7 European member states. It aims at enabling local authorities to identify their common challenges and empowers them to exchange experiences and test innovative solutions to create an advanced digital environment.
Like! Project
Like! (Building a local digital innovation culture) is an Interreg NSR 2014-2020 project focusing on the capacity of the public sector to facilitate and deliver innovation that results in the development of a wide range of service with innovative solutions for improved public service delivery. The project brings together ten partners from five North Sea Region member states.
Digital skills – a key towards digital transformation
During a transnational exchange meeting in Angus (UK) on 5th of July 2018, Like! and CORA project exchanged ideas on potential cooperation and maximizing synergies. Both projects believe that efforts need to be made to maximize the cooperation in order to further elaborate on each other’s findings but also to add new dimensions and views to their project activities.
In terms of content, both projects tackle the existing challenges towards digital transformation in the North Sea Region. While Like! concentrates on developing the innovative ways of smart services delivery, CORA project focuses on creating a digital transformation ecosystem in less developed and rural areas. Both projects bring together more than 28 organizations from the North Sea Region with more than 15 local and regional authorities participating in the projects. The local and regional authorities in both projects share similar challenges, therefore exchange of know-how and findings in common areas will maximize the learning effects and effectiveness of transnational cooperation as such. As a cross cutting theme, the partners of both projects are convinced that improving the digital skills of local stakeholders is a key dimension towards digital transformation in cities and regions around the North Sea Region.
Limited access and use of digital technologies in regions and especially in rural areas are accompanied with a lack of digital skills of different social groups (e.g. elderly people) and in businesses. However, digital literacy and the awareness of the possibilities digitalisation offers is key to create new business models, applications and services and contributes to the social cohesion and economic prosperity in Europe. To ensure that everyone can engage in and benefit from the digital economy and adapt rapidly to new and unexpected occupations and skill needs, education and training systems should place a stronger emphasis on promoting ICT skills on different levels (generic, specialized, complementary), including foundational skills, digital literacy, higher-order critical thinking skills as well as social and emotional skills. Greater efforts are also needed to raise the skills of those adults with weak literacy, numeracy and digital skills to enable them to fully participate in the digital economy and society. That way the projects take up key issues for digital transformation in the G20.
To overcome the skills gaps, targeted trainings will be developed in CORA to cover a wide range of society. This will be based on blended learning: a mix between virtual learning elements (e-learning) and physical learning activities (workshops). The main recipients of the training are local communities (awareness raising and training for citizens), enterprises (mostly SMEs), and public authorities.
As the first step towards cooperation, Like! project partners will contribute in preparation of selected e-learning materials for the development and promotion of new and innovative smart services according to their findings. They will also use the CORA training platform and concept in their organizations. Furthermore and to facilitate a continuous exchange, partners from both projects will participate in further joint events. Like! project partners are invited to join the CORA first annual conference taking place by the end of 2018, where the main findings of the project will be introduced to a wide range of EU stakeholders.