The European Digital City Index 2016 (EDCi) describes how well different European cities support digital entrepreneurship. It aims to provide a holistic and local view of what matters to digital startups. According to the developers (Nesta), it is the most complete description of what impacts digital entrepreneurs on a local level, and how different digital startup ecosystems compare within Europe.

The Index was produced by Nesta as part of the European Digital Forum, which exists to support digital entrepreneurship and digital startups across Europe. The European Digital Forum is run in collaboration with the European Commission's Startup Europe initiative. The project has been funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

For startups and scale-ups, it provides information about the strengths and weaknesses of local ecosystems, allowing them to plan accordingly and consider where they may need to devote more resources.

For policy makers aiming to encourage digital entrepreneurship in their own city, the Index helps to identify existing and promising hubs of activity, in order to learn from their practices. Additionally, it allows benchmarking of performance against other European hubs, and helps identify which policy areas to prioritise.
Comparison with other indices.

Wenn Unternehmen "umstellen" auf Selbstorganisation, wenn schwerfällige Modelle von formaler Hierarchie durch autonome Netzwerk-Stukturen ersetzt werden sollen (Stichwort "holacracy"), dann folgen frustrierende Erfahrungen meist auf den Fuß. Der Rückfall in gewohnte Muster passiert oft bei der nächstbesten Gelegenheit. Dann fühlen sich die Kritiker bestätigt und feiern: Wir haben es gewusst!

Warum fallen wir relativ schnell zurück in alte hierarchische Muster („Pattern“), die dem Ideal des co-working, der Agilität und der Effizienz völlig widersprechen? Weil wir in einer anderen Kultur aufgewachsen sind. In einer Kultur der traditionellen Muster, die wir reproduzieren, sobald erste Probleme auftauchen.  Eine dieser Reproduktionen ist das Chefmuster, in das wir nahezu automatisch verfallen, wenn ein Problem auftaucht. Das hat aber - entgegen unserer Überzeugungen - nichts mit den Personen zu tun, die so gerne ein Chefspiel spielen, es hat mit einer hartnäckigen Chefkultur zu tun. Es hat mit dem Mind Set zu tun, das wir mit "Organisation" automatisch verbinden. Es ist ein Kulturding.

There are two objects taken as an exasperating and unavoidable duty by the vast majority of people outside my bubble: to study and to job.

Therefore and amongst others, two vital and increasing societal movements alarm this vast majority: the so-called „lifelong learning“ and „to job up to your seventies“. The liquidation of former accepted age limits causes deep uncertainty.

And this is the first dilemma, focused by a saying that sails through the web for months now: „Those who require us to work until we’re seventy are the same who refuse giving us a job after we passed our fiftieth birthday.“

But there’s also a second dilemma: to stay connected to the job market, I have to seamless participate in further education – although nobody can anticipate, in which direction this market will move.

Partners from the UK, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain and Sweden are developing a new innovative method of training that will empower young unemployed individuals and/or NEETs. They will prepare participants to not only adapt to potentially stressful events and successfully assimilate these, but also to use these potential stressors as opportunities for positive growth based on identification and utilisation of key Positive Psychology constructs and processes. This will be accomplished by the development of a training curriculum "Be Positive". The end result is that organisations will have a resource that will address the psychological issues that are relevant to this group in a positive way.

Visit our website: http://www.bpositive.eu/

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BePositive-552017228233849/

The “Combat Bullying: A Whole School Program” (ComBuS) project aims to promote learning (face-to-face plus online and mobile methodologies, tools and activities) on how to combat bullying and create healthy and safe school communities for students, teachers, school staff, school leaders and parents.

Rooms to VET aims to maintain and increase the competitiveness of the European tourism industry through the development of an e-learning platform of 6 Modules to support the upskilling and professionalisation of tourism services provided by owners of private accommodations, small residences and family arrangements. This platform aims to become the ultimate guide for making use of all opportunities and tools available at national and European level in this respect.

Rooms to VET - Upskilling and Professionalisation of private tourism accommodation services is a 24-month 

(September 2015-2017) EU co-funded project under the Erasmus+ programme, implemented by 9 partners from 5 EU countries (Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Slovenia, Spain), experts in the fields of tourism and VET.

Are you a private tourism accommodation service provider?Europe is the world's no. 1 tourist destination, with the highest density and diversity of tourist attractions. Private rented accommodation in Europe covers as much as 13% of the total of holiday accommodations. Many tourists nowadays opt for private rooms, apartments, residences, looking for more freedom, privacy, interaction with nature as well as with local businesses and cultures, low cost vacation, etc. 

• Take advantage of the new trends in tourism
• Improve your hospitality & service culture
• Plan for success & face-lift your business
• Create innovative products & services
• Make use of tools to promote & sell effectively
• Increase competitiveness of your tourism business
• Learn & train online for free

 Are you a VET trainer in the tourism industry?

•  Give us your input on training needs & challenges
• Collaborate with us in developing the training material
• Make use of the Rooms to VET e-learning platform

 Are you a tourism association, policy-maker, authority?

 Get an insight on sector needs, challenges & prospects

• Help us disseminate the project & its results
• Share with us policy developments, initiatives & tools.

Intrapreneurship and the intrapreneur have entered the business vocabulary quite recently, but in a short time they have managed to attract interest, especially in the leading sector and industry of ICT. Competition, the need for the development of new ideas, the ever changing business and corporate environment, leave no options to simply overlook creativity wherever it comes from. Companies and businesses need all too often to rely on the innovative entrepreneurial potential of their human resources. What organisations have to do is allow intrapreneurship to flourish, stimulating and supporting potential intrapreneurs.

All too often projects fail to prove sustainable. Quite simply without external funding the products and practices developed do not survive. But sometimes they take off and resonate in new ways even without a financial stimulus. So it is with RadioActive. RadioActive was a project funded under the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning project to develop the use of internet radio with unemployed people and socially disadvantaged groups. And although the funding finished over a year ago, projects partners in three countries – Germany, Portugal and the Uk are still producing radio programmes.

On 28th Jan was London’s turn. At 1400 UK time, 1500 CET the Univeristy of East London presented a show entitled “DJ showdown: older DJs and today’s crop of Turntablists trade blows.” Is DJing an art form? With digital tech so easily available and virtually unlimited access to MP3s via a laptop, is everyone now a DJ? And if so does that mean older people who learnt their craft through hard graft have wasted their time? Don’t all the years of physically carrying lbs of vinyl to clubs and then actually mixing records live amount to something? We examine what does it mean to be a DJ in 2016 and how it has changed over the last three decades.

We compared the different styles of mixing music ranging from Geoff Humphries who DJ’d in the house music scene of Ibiza, Rhythm Vandals (mostly playing the clubs in Leeds in the 90s) right up to newest wave of teenage Turntablists where Abrakadaniel beat mixes for us. Tracks include the Sex Pistols, Madonna/Abba, the late Lemmy from Motörhead through to Soulwax. What influence have new techniques and digital accuracy that take account of key and time signatures actually had on mixing? We hear the likes of Titancube, RiFF RAFF, Skrillex, Datsik, Brillz & LAXX and more.

You can listen to the recording of this and other programmes at  http://uk2.radioactive101.eu/broadcast/

Source: Pontydysgu - Bridge to Learning

Thanks to Graham Attwell for sharing with us!

We welcome you to join us for the CHOICE Final Event that will take place on the 19^th October 2015 in Lisbon, Portugal. This event will take place one day before the ICT 2015 event (Click here to know more details about this event), involving the high participation of the European Commission's policies and initiatives with regard to R&I in ICT.

Interview with Ana Raducanu, host community for RestartEDU Romania (Community of Practice on Transforming Education in Romania). The interview was conducted by Magda Balica in Cheia, Romania - RestartEDU Camp 2015 for www.discuss-community.eu.

What is RestartEDU?

We are here at the third event, a summer camp we are hosting for our community. This started three years ago with 50 members from various NGOs, as well as business and public sector, working in education. The community started from a common purpose of transforming education in any way possible. We have developed our community so far through various events, this one being one of them. And, we have created spaces for people who share the same purpose, to meet and share resources, connect with each other, find out how they can support and help one another in order to have greater impact together and reach their goals even faster. You know, education is a sector in which it takes long time to see the results. So, we are hoping for an increase or acceleration of this process by putting all our resources together. To see how we can enhance that.

So, people say that with RestartEdu you started the most authentic community on education in Romania. But, at the same time you say that the goal of your community is to transfrom education. So, I was thinking about what it means to have this goal. Do you think that this ideal to transform education is too high for a community, or after two years you should lower your ambitions?

We based our community on the passion that people have for what they do. And I think this passion should not be lmimted by a standard of what is doable, what is reachable or not. I think we have in our hearts a vision of how beautiful this world can be and, how great our education can really work for our future. And that’s the place out of which this people start and create the transformation that they need. So, I hope our vision can increase year after year, because that will drive us further and we’ll enhance that passion to have a reach even beyond what we can practically do.

The TIM project develops an on-line collaborative learning environment to develop creativity among workers in the metal industry so that they will be the drivers of the introduction of innovation in the metalworking companies. The steel industry is one of the key sectors at European level, not only for being one of the main generators of employment, but also for being one of the most profitable of all European manufacturing industries. This is recognized by the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission in its publication “Spotlight on Europe’s invisible sector”, pointing to Germany followed by Italy, France, UK and Spain as the largest producers.

However, the sector is not free of problems, exacerbated by the global economic crisis being faced. Among them, the need to improve the skills of its workers and deploy skills related to creativity and innovation that result in improved business competitiveness. The TIM project is co-financed by the European Union through the Lifelong Learning Programme and is the result of collaboration of organizations from 6 countries: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Poland and Greece.

ReSoLVe aims at developing the German video platform draufhaber.tv to European usability. draufhaber.tv is aimed to become a European video platform which is used by young people during their vocational orientation or training in order to explain how to solve occupational tasks. Thereby it provides a module in European information space as well as in European space of lifelong learning. By applying highest European standards of data security, draufhaber.tv offers young people appropriate space for their self-produced videos. The platform will be translated into English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Russian.

European Public Employment Services (PES) are key agents in supporting Europe’s strategic goal of high levels of employability during a period of economic turbulence and demographic change. The increased demands on these public services have precipitated a need for transformation and continuous development. For managers and practitioners to perform successfully in their job and to support their own, and their clients’/claimants’, career adaptability and resilience, they each need to acquire a set of new transversal skills and competencies, as well as embed a professional culture of continuous improvement.

EmployID is a major EU-funded four-year project which aims to support PES staff to develop appropriate competences that address the need for integration and activation of job seekers in fast changing labour markets. It builds upon career adaptability and resilience in practice, including quality and evidence-based frameworks for enhanced individual and organisational learning. It also supports the learning process of PES practitioners and managers in their professional identity development by supporting the efficient use of technologies to provide advanced coaching, reflection, networking and learning support services as well as MOOCs. The project focuses on scalable and cost effective technological developments that empower individuals and organisations to engage in transformative learning practices, assisting their capability to adapt to rapidly changing pressures and demands.

Most organisations have little knowledge of their own strengths and abilities to innovate. The project aimed at identifying and making the most of those, while raising awareness about shortages which might be hindering the company’s competitiveness. This was done by means of a diagnosis tool as well as a practice programme created according to the company’s needs, the implementation of which was facilitated by the higher education institutions.

The rationale behind the BINNOC project is to respond to the need for an increase in competitiveness of businesses which are developing their activities in the current economic environment. The project intends to promote, by means of active co-operation between universities and enterprises, the introduction of innovation in all their spheres of action as a competitiveness improvement tool. The main aim is to design a work methodology within higher education institutions and companies which allows the diagnosis of the innovation capability of companies (especially SMEs) and to propose a series of actions (combining training and support) which respond to the needs identified.