[Telecentres] Telecentres.Europe

[Mikhail Doroshevich]

 Telecentres.Europe

The TelecentreEurope network runs across 19 NGO's in 19 countries (with more
possible) and provides e-skills to more than 80000 people every year. The
training happens through the 600 training centers that these NGOs manage and
support. The network aspires to play a prominent role in the development of
citizens' e-skills and the innovative implementation of large scale
information technology programmes for e-Inclusion, quality of life and
social enterprises in Europe. We see our efforts as completely consistent
with the objectives of the Lisbon Agenda's principles and frameworks.

Telecentres.Europe follows a project-driven approach in its development
based on recognizing leadership in different telecentre areas of competence.
It is establishing an effective communication and operational environment
for national telecentre projects to collaborate, partner, and integrate
resources toward achieving the EU strategic goals for building the European
Information Society. It is incubating project development and project
management capacity to seek project funds and implement international
projects with EU and other funding. It will develop a strategy paper on
eSkills for Employability and Inclusion with recommendations to the European
Commission for utilization of joined telecentre resources and practices.
Technology

The technologies used by the NGOs within the network range from very basic
to highly sophisticated portals and collaboration tools. State of the art
e-learning and more conventional off-line approaches are used to train
people in cities, very rural environments or even through mobile classrooms.
Similarly, management of the centers is accomplished using both state-of
the-art tools and web portals and more conventional means. Consistent across
all efforts is recognition that training and using technology successfully
does require investment in face to face interaction to maximize the benefits
and relevance of technologies' promise.

http://www.epractice.eu/cases/2443