The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about new hybrid contexts in which digital competencies “are the key to unlocking present and future opportunities.” This is because without these skills “there is a whole raft of professional, personal, employment, association and many other types of opportunities which cannot be seized” and so “it’s not only a gap but will also be crucial in ensuring full citizenship.”
This is what Liliana Arroyo, PhD in Sociology and a researcher at Esade’s Institute for Social Innovation, said today at the second Digital Competencies Conference held online under the tagline ‘Digital Citizenship in a Time of Pandemic’.
“Digital competences are not about instrumental skills but rather about being able to understand how the digital environment works in order to harness it for your own individual or group purposes,” she argued.
Digital tools enable people “to be at the heart of innovation and development, at the heart of decision-making, at the heart of public policymaking. And all of this means that digital environments anchored in universal design can be much more inclusive and afford them a much more active, much more proactive and much more prominent role than they have had so far.”
The second Digital Competencies Conference brought together experts to address the digital skills and competencies needed in the current scenario shaped by Covid-19 which has shifted many activities and interactions online.
The event was organised by the Catalan Government’s Ministry of Digital Policies and Public Administration, Barcelona City Council’s local economic development agency Barcelona Activa, the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and Blanquerna-Ramon Llull University in partnership with the Eurecat technology centre and Mobile World Capital Barcelona. It unpacked the reference frameworks for digital competencies, the digital divide and inequalities, and digital wellbeing and security.
“The pandemic has shown that being part of the digital society is not a choice,” said Joana Barbany, the Director General of Digital Society in the Ministry of Digital Policies and Public Administration. “Anybody who is excluded from it today is on the fringes of society.”
“Training in digital competencies using instruments such as the ACTIC accreditation sponsored by the Catalan Government for the last 11 years is a key factor in achieving empowered, committed and competent digital citizenship which helps to build a new, fairer and more balanced digital society working for the wellbeing of all.”
Here Barbany noted the decree passed a few days ago by the Government regulating ACTIC accreditation and how to earn it. This enhances the decentralised model of accreditation and cements the role the public need to play in addressing the challenges of the new Digital Society.
“The pandemic has underscored the growing importance of digitalisation in all areas of our lives and we have indeed harnessed its potential, yet it has also made the digital divide even more glaringly obvious,” pointed out Michael Donaldson, Chief Technology Officer and CIO at Barcelona City Council. “It is up to all of us, and we will take the lead here at the City Council, to bring about digital inclusion and leave no one behind. Digital training is one of the primary tools in ensuring that outstanding use of technology and the Internet unleashes personal transformation and empowerment.”
At Blanquerna-Llull’s School of Psychology, Education and Sport Sciences (FPCEE) they think that universities “should be an example and model of how to make best use of digital technologies and their associated competencies.” The current situation has “really underscored the need to tackle this issue head on” given that “the pandemic has brought to light our shortcomings in technological knowhow and skills.” Hence FPCEE Blanquerna-Llull believes that it is absolutely essential to add ACTIC accreditation of information and communication technology competencies to university degrees.
Meanwhile, Félix Ortega, Barcelona Activa’s General Manager, noted that Cibernàrium has been fostering the acquisition of digital competencies and promoting technological training for all for more than 20 years. “Our aim has been and continues to be to equip a large part of Barcelona’s residents with sufficient digital skills to rise to the challenge of fast-paced social, economic and digital transformation,” he commented. “We firmly believe that we are actively helping to build a more prosperous and competitive society. For example, 160,000 people have used the Cibernàrium service in the 21st century to keep up to speed with technology which is so critical today for both professional and everyday life.” The message from Barcelona Activa was that “digital skills are a mechanism for social inclusion yet also one of the driving forces behind innovation in any field.” This means that “public policies such as supporting people’s participation in the digital society furnish the city with the tools and talent needed to cement the technology hub and ecosystem that Barcelona is today.”
Àngels Fitó, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Competitiveness and Employability at the UOC, said that ever since this digital university was founded 25 years ago “we have sought to play an enabling role in terms of using technologies, including adding an ICT Competencies subject to our degree courses which since 2014 has been certified through equivalence with ACTIC intermediate level.” Fitó added that “a significant part of our research and transfer has been in deepening the scope of this enabling process by working in the Catalan, European and international environment and (re)defining firstly the reference frameworks for digital competencies, and then secondly, and in exceptional times such as the one we have gone through and are still going through, helping other educational institutions to tailor their teaching processes as effectively as possible.”
Clara Centeno, Senior Researcher at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, Human Capital and Employment Unit; Ricard Faura, Head of the Government of Catalonia’s Digital Inclusion and Training Service; Teresa Romeu, associate lecturer at the UOC’s Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences and a researcher in the Edul@b research group on Education and ICT, and Miquel Àngel Prats, senior lecturer at Blanquerna-URL and lead researcher in the eduTIC strand in Blanquerna-URL’s PSITIC research group, discussed the reference frameworks for digital competencies.
Sandra Gómez, research specialist at the Ferrer i Guàrdia Foundation; Michael Donaldson, Chief Technology Officer and CIO at Barcelona City Council, and Marta Bricall, Senior Manager Advisory Services at KPMG, addressed the digital divide and inequalities.
Speakers on digital wellbeing and security included Nereida Carrillo, a promoter of Learn to Check; Daniel Vargas, a specialist in educational content at Common Sense Education, and Davínia Ligero a staff member in the Studies and Research Division at the Catalan Audiovisual Council.
