17 Jan New platform on jobs and youth to be developed in 2015
17 Jan, 2015
By Masha Tarle
New year, new project
Telecentre Europe is opening the year 2015 with a new exciting project titled I-LINC, funded under the Horizon 2020 of the European Commission and going until end of 2017. The project aims to develop and sustain a European stakeholder platform around the topic of ICT for learning and inclusion, with a special focus on youth employability and entrepreneurship. The platform will have an online portal and a series of live events that will connect organisations, professionals and young people.
The kick-off meeting was held on 13th-14th January in the Brussels offices of Telefonica S.A. with partners meeting and discussing project plans, deliverables, tasks and objectives. The project consortium is composed of five partners: TE and European SchoolNet represent the civil society/NGO , the Technical University of Dortmund ( TUDO) from the the academic field, and Telefonica (the Spanish telecommunications giant) as part of the private sector.
The I-LINC project is divided into eight so-called ‘work packages’ with each partner taking a lead on a different package and set of tasks. Some of the challenges that could already be identified by the partners fall in the category of precisely defining the different terms the project will use (platform, stakeholder, engagement, inclusion) or deciding how to engage new stakeholders. The project will witness a number of research and evaluation activities, a policy hub, online networking and the active participant of young people , just to mention some of the activities foreseen. The project will also have a steering committee, an ethical committee and an advisory board to ensure that all is on track and ideas are checked against pre-defined standards of excellence.
The meeting was facilitated by TE’s Managing Director Gabriel Rissola and the team of researchers from by the Technical University of Dortmund who helped the partners discuss the terminology and the differences in understanding certain concepts. This first meeting was organisational in nature and is only a first step to determining collaborating methods, deadlines and common terms. The following months, especially March and April will be instrumental in defining what the new platform will look like, how organisations and individuals can benefit from it and how it will be translated in the online environment.
For more information on the project results, please consult the I-LINC poster/leaflet here.
If your organisation wants to show interest in becoming a stakeholder and joining our community, please drop us an email.