15 Oct Telecentre Europe Summit 2010: Joining up for European e-Inclusion
15 Oct, 2010
Under the title “Joining up for European e-Inclusion” the third Telecentre-Europe Summit took place in Budapest, Hungary during 13-14 October 2010, and brought together telecentre network leaders and eInclusion actors from across Europe.
The event was held under the patronage of Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission, responsible for the Digital Agenda.
The key theme of the event focused on how telecentres can maximize their contribution towards a successful European Digital Agenda and included three main topics:
- Achieving European eCitizenship
- eSkills for everyone
- Building telecentre capacity
During the two days of the Summit, participants were able to listen, share and work together throughout a challenging series of plenary and parallel workshop sessions. However, it all started on 12th of October with an interactive session on free online tools available for telecentres, followed by a welcome reception for participants, both hosted by Microsoft.
DAY I
On Day 1 (13 October 2010), the summit kicked-off with a warm welcome given by Ian Clifford, Co-Chair of Telecentre Europe, together with Peter Palvolgyi from DemNet and Edit Fabulya from Telehaz, both representing the Hungarian partners of the Summit. They were followed by a short keynote of Mónika Németh, from the Hungarian Ministry of National Development that provided an overview of the eInclusion efforts at national level.
The first plenary session started shortly after, with an introductory speech from Ian Clifford (session host and moderator), which displayed the journey of Telecentre Europe, from its early beginning back in 2007 and going through the history, by highlighting the milestones of the network growth. Ian also introduced a video address from Neelie Kroes who has kindly accepted our invitation to be patron of the event. Her speech was inspirational and challenging for all participants and offered a glimpse of how the European Commission is seeing the role of telecentres in the Digital Agenda:
Having had the context explained, the keynote speakers (Sylvie Lafarge from Microsoft, Dr Shadrach Basheerhamad from Telecentre.org Foundation and Gabi Barna from Telecentre Europe) explored further how we can all team up to maximize the contribution of telecentres to the eInclusion European goals.
This session was also setting the stage for the following workshops organized in parallel in each of the three work-streams: Achieving European eCitizenship, eSkills for everyone, and Building telecentre capacity. The first two work-streams during Day 1 included presentations and interactive discussions between the telecentre leaders and Telecentre Europe stakeholders.
During 2nd plenary session, we were able to explore some of the plans for projects and best practices of the Telecentre Europe network and to actively participate in small group debates on many of these projects.
Day 1 ended with a boat tour on the Danube, where we could enjoy the wonderful views of the city lights, followed by dinner and drinks in a relaxed atmosphere accompanied by great music.
DAY II
The Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships plenary session opened the 2nd day of the Summit (14 October 2010). The speakers (Katarzyna Balucka-Debska from the European Commission – DG INFSO, Gabriel Rissola from the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies – European Commission, Anthony David from Telecentre.org, and Juan Francisco Delgado Morales from Association Comunidad Redes de Telecentros – Spain) provided a broader view on benefits of such partnerships and why it is important to engage in public-private partnerships at the national, regional and local level.
The last work-stream session followed shortly, providing new opportunities for knowledge sharing and exchange of best practices among the participants.
The summit was officially closed with conclusions, evaluation and of course, the group photo session.
After lunch, the Steering Committee organized a meeting about the establishment of Telecentre Europe as an a.i.s.b.l. where member organizations of Telecentre Europe convened in order to set the strategic goals of the network, and to decide on a number of issues regarding governance, strategic plan and membership.
We hope you enjoyed your summit experience and we would like to thank all participants, stakeholders, and supporters for their active involvement and dedication that led to a successful event.
» summit presentations
» summit pictures
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