Connect Me! is the final conference of a three years project within the EU DG Education and Culture Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) – KA3, “Web 2.0-based virtual communities and social learning to strengthen competencies of people at risk of exclusion – CONNECT”. It was focused on the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a key enabling factor for learning, competence development, people’s, enterprises’, society’s growth.

The project, www.connect-project.eu, addresses labour, employment agencies as well as training institutions and out-placement organisations, interested in exploiting the new WEB 2.0 technologies with their specific target groups, i.e. people seeking a job, migrants, etc.
In fact the CONNECT aim was to make people meet and communicate with each other at distance, by the WEB, to enhance their key competences such as collaboration, knowledge sharing, and communication itself.

One of the main project results, beyond the specific products coming out of the network’s activities, was the overall increase of awareness about the WEB potential, e.g. for the continuous monitoring of the labour market needs, peer-to-peer mutual learning.

With Connect Me! which closes the testing phase, the partners intend to communicate a strong message: the WEB represents a new paradigm for learning, building partnerships, creating value for everybody. As such, it needs traditional cultural and organisation models to be re-thought. That’s not easy as they belong to us; above all, they belong to the aging generations who do represent the majority of the workforce, nonetheless.

Concerning the conference, the first Panel, opening the conference day, will be focussed on the WEB and the social-cultural-digital-labour market- inclusion; the second Panel will be focussed on learning processes and the WEB, how the WEB can help and facilitate people’s and organisations’ informal learning.

Both Panels will discuss the WEB as a more and more powerful tool to overcome inefficiencies, reducing costs, simplifying, increasing transparency. On the other hand, that’s possible only when Public Administrations themselves are determined to using the new technologies and applying the new paradigms.

There cannot be “smart cities” without new cultural and mental models inside institutions and among citizens. It is not a matter of “Digital Economy” only but “Digital Ecology”, too.

Under this scenario, the second Panel can discuss on three lines:
a) The connectivity and the network;
b) The mobile technologies;
c) The application tools.

Each Panel participant can deal with those topics in relation to

  • Collaboration/knowledge sharing tools and social network impacts on collective learning;
  • Which implementation and usage aspects are key from a cultural point of view, with respect to the new technologies; what about data on WEB 2.0 citizens’ perceptions:
  • Advantages of LTE (4G);
  • Citizens’ duties and rights (net neutrality, security, digital right management, privacy);
  • WEB 3.0 ?
  • ….

The conference is free for registrated participants.