Get Online Week: New campaign across EU

Get Online Week runs from 24-30 March and is organized by Telecentre Europe with the support of the European Commission.

The slogan of this year’s effort is: 'Get empowered, get employed' – aimed at helping young and unemployed Europeans get the e-skills needed for the 21st century workplace.

European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said: “Digital skills are the new literacy. When I grew up it was about reading and writing. Today it is about searching and coding. If you have a dream or a dream job: today you need digital skills. You need the internet.”

Did you know?

• There are 5.5 million young unemployed in Europe, but only 17% have an online job profile on sites such as LinkedIn (US, global) or Xing (Germany, global).
• Many young people who use the internet on a daily basis but do not have the full skills needed to convert this interest into a job.
• Nearly all doctors use email and internet in their private life, but most don’t use it to interact with patients.

What is happening for Get Online Week? #GOW14

Events in 5,000 ICT centres and by GOW National Partners will reach nearly 100,000 Europeans directly. Events will take place in: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece , Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden

Corporate supporters include Liberty Global and Microsoft. Microsoft’s YouthSpark  provides grants and software to bring concrete e-skills and training to youth. Liberty Global’s YouRock initiative is a new online youth employability service for identifying hidden work skills and building a profile for employability.

How is Get Online Week related to EU policy developments?

Get Online Week is embedded into a major year-long digital empowerment campaign, the European e-Skills for jobs campaign, organised by the European Commission, European Schoolnet and DIGITALEUROPE. All of these efforts support the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs.

We asked Europeans on Twitter: Who or what got you online?

Here are some of the best answers:

“Knowledge (gathering and sharing), and in the end, Open Source movement”

Anne, 30: “The feeling I was missing out.”

@ThijsWhoa : “My dad, in the spring of 1995 he had had a bypass operation and my brother- in-law gave him a him a laptop and an internet connection to keep him busy. My dad showed me the ropes and after ten minutes I was chatting with someone in the United States called 'Nerfherder', talking about Star Wars and other geeky stuff. I was sold right there and then.”

@haesebroeck “We started our company 12 years ago without any funds, but thanks to the internet people find us easily!”

@tuntunaung : “My curious mind”

“It was in my final year at school. I could see the internet was like 1,000 or a million libraries and I knew I had to learn more about it.”

@feromalo “My parents' interest in getting their kids to experience novelties; on my part, curiosity: what was it?"

www.getonlineweek.eu
#GOW14 #YouthSpark #YouRock

Share this article: