Digitalisation and citizens participation: two topics at the core of ALDA Festival 2023

On 7 June 2023, as part of the ALDA Festival and General Assembly 2023, two events took place in Etterbeek (Belgium) within the framework of the TALE and the P-CUBE project, organised by the ALDA Thematic Hub “Youth empowerment and education” : «2024 European elections —  the TALE World Café» and “Education becomes digital» — P-CUBE international Final Conference. 

2024 European elections —  TALE World Café 

The TALE Project aims to reach and engage a greater number of voters, reduce the gap of voter turnout among the various EU member states, and activate and empower them to play an active role and thus vote in the next European parliamentary elections in 2024.

To this end, the TALE World Café started with an opening and welcoming speech by Ms. Laura Thomas, Liaison officer at European Capital of Democracy (ECoD), who presented the European Parliament’s strategy for the 2024 European elections and the commitment of ALDA and ECoD in this field.

After this preliminary introduction, a focus on “European Elections 2024: The European Parliament’s strategy” was offered by Ms. Sol De La Guardia, Officer responsible for Communication in the Civil Society Outreach Unit in the Direction-General for Communication of the European Parliament. Afterwards, Ms. Dafne Sgarra, Project Manager at ALDA and Hub coordinator, presented an overview of the TALE project. 

Finally, three main tables were organised by ECoD and ALDA’s experts, discussing political activism and youth engagement; effective online and offline campaigning; and news and active democratic participation.

More than 40 young participants, stakeholders and civil society organisations’ members participated in the TALE World Café. As a result of this event, the outcomes of the discussion will be taken into account as inputs for the Capacity Building Programme of the TALE project. 

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Education becomes digital” — The P-CUBE international Final Conference

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The P-CUBE international Final Conference was organised and initiated by the collaboration between ALDA’s Thematic Hubs «Youth empowerment and education» and «Digitalisation and Innovation». 

The event started with the opening speech by Mr. Marco Boaria, ALDA Director of Programs and Corporate Strategy. 

Then, Ms. Marta Markowska, Policy Officer at Directorate General for Education, Youth Sport and Culture (DG EAC) of the European Commission, delivered her speech “Delivering on digital education: digital skills for empowerment” by focusing on the opportunities offered by the European Union in terms of inclusive digital education and digital skills, which are of paramount importance to make citizens more active, aware and empowered. Ms. Markowska specifically focused on the Erasmus+ programme and on 2023 as the European Year of Skills. 

Ms. Markowska’s intervention was followed by a speech of Ms. Saga Smith, Project Manager at Science for Democracy, who introduced the P-CUBE project — Playing Public Policy to the audience with a presentation of the main objectives and activities, the last steps of the project and the game itself.

As a conclusion to the event, the «Education goes digital» roundtable discussion took place, with a focus on three case studies: the Lifelong Learning Platform‘s experience, presented by Mr. Andrea Lapegna, Deputy Director of LLP; the Megaskills and the ALL DIGITAL Academy, presented by Mr. Afonso Araujo, Project Manager at ALL DIGITAL; and of course, the P-CUBE game, exploring in particular the policy area of Science and Public Policy with Ms. Saga Smith, Project Manager at Science for Democracy. The event ended with a Questions & Answers session, where the audience had the possibility to exchange views and opinions on the topics discussed.