‘Our Digital Future, C’est ICI’ Success For ThinkYoung

Over the past 30 years, a new digital culture, interactivity and instantaneous communication have fundamentally changed the world.

We are now at new crossroads; advances in augmented reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence; the ‘internet of things’. These change the way we live, work, play and participate in society- administratively, economically, socially and politically.

What are the potential benefits of these changes? What are the potential drawbacks? How can we ensure that such changes lead to further development of inclusive society?

Since 2019, ‘’Our Digital Future, C’est ICI’’ offered young adults a new platform for a debate that addressed our digital future in a holistic and positive way, and focused on identifying the principles, processes and decisions that helped to lead to the most inclusive digital societies.

With the participation of more than 25 policy-makers from Europe and Canada and the engagement of more than 50 experts from the digitalisation and other sectors, as speakers, mentors and jury, the project achieved very good recognition and very high-level results.

You can read the project report here.

Huge Success

The project was realised by ThinkYoung, Goethe-Institut Montreal and Carrefour Jeunesse Emploi NDG and was funded by the European Union.

Here are some of our achievements from the past two years:

• 1,037 Thinkathon Participants, 1,729 Actively Participating Youth, 3,500 Youth Reached
• 18 Winning Recommendations & 115 Overall Recommendations over 5 events
• Mentioned 1,187 times on social media, digital outlets, and traditional media
• More than 400 organisations collaborated with us and/or supported the project’s promotion
• Thinkathon videos were shared over 1,550 times and received more than 540’580 views

Main topics participants worked include:

• Citizenship 4.0; Social Relations; Smart and Fast Expanding Cities; Security; Education; Culture and Entertainment; Racism/Anti-racism; Gender Equality; Climate Change; Health through the digital spectrum.

Reading List

Some of the winning recommendations (link to full list):

1. The holistic reintegration of incarcerated individuals cannot take place if we do not provide them with opportunities to develop digital skills.

These skills have become increasingly important in our digitised society. We recommend the Government of Canada support the establishment of a pilot-study which will explore the implementation of digital skills learning opportunities for incarcerated persons in federal correctional facilities. (Canada)

1. Policy makers must develop and implement a strategy to urge workplaces to offer smart and remote working alternatives whenever possible.

This must be done to ensure that women are not limited in their career whilst caring for a family and doing hours of unpaid domestic work in addition to care work every day. (Europe)

1. We recommend the Canadian federal government allocate an interest-free loan program for BIPOC SMEs that will enhance equity by ensuring these businesses are recognised, supported, and sustained. Returning value to BIPOC communities is the only way to reverse the historic and pervasive disruption that has prevented SMEs from flourishing.

It is also vital to afford BIPOC full autonomy in where and how funds are allocated as only those within these communities have lived experiences to know where investment would be most effective. (Canada/Europe)

1. Technology in the health-care system can offer the answer to the exclusion of individuals living in rural areas through telemedicine and formation. We recommend developing telemedicine to reduce the inequalities of medical access and to ensure a better educated population in regards to healthcare. (Europe).

After the successful implementation in the past two years, the project is continuing for 2021 with webinars, discussion papers, 24h Thinkathons, and the addition of a ThinkYoung Digital Coalition.

It is currently composed of 65 organisations and individuals aged 18-35 working to address inequality, poverty, and digital access across Europe.

The Thinkathon project continues to provide the opportunity to young people, to have a voice for digital inclusion and equity in the region, a space to share information and data on the issues revolving around digitalisation ideas and practices, and to make our understanding of young generations wider!

For more information please contact Marilena Toumazou at [email protected].

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