BOOMER Project Kick-Off Meeting held in Brussels

On September 29th, 2022, the consortium joined the Kick-Off Meeting of BOOMER – Booming digital lireracy skills among elderly population, a Project co-funded by the Erasmus Plus Program of the European Commission, which brings together 8 Partners from 5 countries (Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Italy and Spain), led by the University of Dubrovnik. The meeting wal held in hybrid mode in Brussels, Belgium.

Over recent years social inclusion of seniors emerged as one of the most pressing priorities for EU policy makers. Negative demographic trends along with rapidly increasing penetration of digital technologies in virtually every aspect of human living have promoted elderly population (seniors) into one of most vulnerable and disadvantaged societal group. The recent COVID emergency made this even clearer. In conditions of lockdown, the sad reality of the generational digital divide has become clearly exposed.

Adults in general, and among them particularly seniors, are more than ever exposed to digital isolation. This is even more worrisome as it happens in an emergency when the use of digital technologies is a must for event the most essential activities such as online shopping, banking, and access to information (including crucial and reliable health information). Low levels of digital literacy make seniors more vulnerable to cyber threats ranging from fake news to cyber-financial crimes than the rest of the population. Therefore, digital literacy can no longer be considered an advantage but a necessity for the elderly population.

In this context, BOOMER addresses the evident and urgent pan-European need for rapid and concrete upskilling of seniors in digital competencies. The BOOMER consortium will contirbute to the prevention of the digital isolation of seniors in the digital age by developing the targeted training materials and making them available via the BOOMER  Virtual Corner, an open educational resource (OER) platform.

The consortium formed by University of Dubrovnik (HR), University of Zagreb (HR),  IHF (BE), d-ialogo (DE), IDP (IT), IWS (ES), Croatian Telecom (HR) and MUH (HR) will work over the next 24 months to fulfil the development and implementation of the project, thus meeting BOOMER’s objectives.

More information on BOOMER Virtual Corner: www.digital-boomer.eu