“Technological Literacy 4.0: the way towards inclusion”

YouthProAktiv organized another successful training in Brussels, Belgium, from the 21st to 26th of November 2021 called “Technological Literacy 4.0: the way towards inclusion”.  

The project marks another milestone reached, even in challenging times, as the one we are currently living in the pandemic context. Despite the current challenges, with the effort of our dedicated teams and the hard work of our partners: Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, Entrepreneurship and social economy group, Jovot Epitok Generaciója Egyesulet, Agency for innovation and development, the Nuwa group, Human Rights Research Center, Avrupa Entegrasyon Derneği, Asociacija Aktyvus Jaunimas, European Youth World, SYTEV, Daj Mi Ruku, Interkulturalis, Youth for Development Foundation, CET Platform, Vilnius Antakalnis Open Youth Center, we were able to provide youth workers with a crucial training for their development and the development of disadvantaged groups they work with.

The training aimed and was tailored towards:

·       Increasing technological literacy skills of youth workers.

·       Increasing labor inclusion rates on disadvantaged youngsters through the increase and empowerment of their technological skills.

·       Developing youth workers’ better understanding of the technological needs and gaps of disadvantaged youth groups and the possible training solutions that can be set up in place to tackle these needs.

·       Raising the technological capacity and preparation of youth organizations and their possibilities to operate transnationally in technological-related projects.

Throughout the five (5) training days, the training “Technological Literacy 4.0: the way towards inclusion” was able to gather in the same room 37 youth workers from different countries such as: Belgium, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Moldova, France, Turkey, Lithuania, The Republic of North Macedonia, Serbia, and Armenia. During the training the participants had the opportunity to strengthen their skills and knowledge in some of the most emerging topics of the era regarding technological literacy, by some of the people who are shaping the future of technology, lecturing these topics. But also, they had the opportunity to get their hands on in different technologies they could use with their target groups and also think, reflect and design projects they can take home and implement with their target groups.

An added value of the training is the excellent speakers who were part of our journey. They divided of their precious time and very scheduled agenda to be with our participants.

On the second day of the training, we had the honor to host Mr. Jean Marteau, he is a Solution Architect and Co-Founder of DGM Dynamics. Mr. Marteau, addressed the participants in two very important sessions: ‘Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Robotics: How can it benefit youth work?’ and ‘Internet of Things. How can youth work leverage from it?’.

On the same day we also got addressed by Mr. Salvijus Unika, the Communication Officer at Blockchain for Europe who shared with us his passion and knowledge on the topic in a session named ‘Blockchain: What it is? Correlation with youth work’.

During the third day of the training, we hosted Mr. Armando Alliu, he works as a Data Scientist at Jetpack AI, and during the session ‘What is Big Data and Data Mining & why is it important to youth work?’ he uncovered more information about data, what is it and how can it be used in order NGOs could leverage from it.

Later on, during the same day, we got addressed by Mr. Benoît Frisque, he contributes as a Product Manager at Spentys, and during the session ‘3D Printing is not magic’ through exercises and a presentation showed us that indeed 3D printing works like magic, but its simple and useful, and showed us how their company uses it to create high-quality, patient-specific orthoses faster and at lower costs.

To conclude a productive day, we invited to the podium, the person their team mates know as The Evangelist. We hosted Mr. Sven Van de Perre, the Creative Director at Tropos AR, to talk about the topic ‘Augmented Virtual Reality: How it changed the world and how can young people benefit from it?’ and through a very creative presentation learned more on how AR and VR are going to shape the world as we know it.

During day four, we were delighted to have with us during the whole day Ms. Aygul Aktas, who contributes in Educentrum. During different sessions as ‘Discover and Fun: Micro:bit!’ and ‘Having fun with the Micro:bit! Mastering it!’ participants had the opportunity to learn the basics of this board and think critically how can they use it to teach others to work with the board.

Except excellent speakers the participants had the opportunity to work with our facilitator, Mr. Blerim Salihi, in various sessions and topics where they had to reflect, work and disseminate results. We also had the opportunity to hear their loud ideas through tailored discussions during the sessions: ‘Why technological literacy? Needs, gaps & solutions’, ‘World Café: Servitization in Industry: Risks and Opportunities for Disadvantaged youngsters’ and ‘World Café: Biotechnologies: Risks and Opportunities for Disadvantaged youngsters.

We also managed to further inspire the participants by providing them an exclusive study visit to MolenGeek innovation space, a recognized and supported hub by tech giants such as Google, Facebook or Amazon. Their new CEO was honoring us with a detailed presentation of their achievements and showed us around their awesome spaces.

We also had the opportunity to show participants new methodologies and analytical tools they could use in their work in order to achieve greater results, and we also got to select five projects that the participants developed and worked on during the course of the training. The projects covered a variety of different technological literacy topics such as: “Making available STEAM Education for disadvantaged youngsters from rural areas”, “Using AR and VR for enabling all young people to virtually travel and learn the culture and history of places”, “Through the use of technology improving agriculture, and production in less developed countries”, “Using 3D printing in education, to offer more opportunities to children from disadvantaged groups” and “Cyber avatars for stopping cyber crime and cyber bullying”.

Despite the busy and productive agenda, the participants also had time for leisure in the evenings. They had the opportunity to visit some of the most attractive landmarks in Brussels, as the Grand Place, Mond des Arts, and the Christmas Market, but they also had the opportunity to a guided visit in the Parlamentarium.

With this new experience and knowledge in their professional portfolios, participants will be able to foster knowledge, passion and new skills into their target groups, with a specific focus on teaching technological literacy to disadvantaged youngsters. Through this training we are a step closer into getting informed and be able to react to problems of the millennium.

If you are interested to participate in our future trainings or you want to get new information about our achievements, please do not forget to follow us on social media, visit our web-page or subscribe to receive our very own newsletter.