Open Adult Education: a curriculum to bridge the digital skills gap with free and open source technologies

The OPEN-AE project is developing an open, and modular curriculum directed to train e-facilitators and trainers working with people who are in need of upskilling and reskilling in free and open-culture. The OPEN AE curriculum is meant to be modular and adaptable to the immediate training needs of the efacilitators. The training aims to introduce the trainers to the values of free and open-culture and empower them with the values behind this culture so it can be transmitted to low-skilled adults. the training will also have modules supporting a transition to free and open source software and culture. Open-AE is not merely about teaching free and open software but aims to have the trainers be active participants in the culture, knowing how to license these openly how to collaborate and develop as a collective. ALL DIGITAL is a network that wants to ensure every European, or rather every person can be empowered by the digital transformation, in short, we work in the field of digital inclusion. Our organisation started slightly over ten years ago as a grassroots movement among digital competency centres, and this scaled to the European level. Today 43% lack basic digital skills with half of them having skills at all. It is important to ensure At the moment ALL DIGITAL is coordinating the OPEN-AE project which aims to introduce free and open-source technologies to those who do not have enough digital skills or are in need upskilling. The project consortium involves partners working in the sector of digital inclusion running digital competency centres around Europe and one European network, ALL DIGITAL. The project aims to bridge the digital skills gap with free and open source technologies by developing a training curriculum directed to e-facilitators working in the non-formal sector. This curriculum will be open and modular allowing trainers to immediately adapt it to their training needs. Open-AE aims to not merely be an one-off project but wants to start a movement in the digital inclusion sector to ensure the digital skills gap is not bridge merely with proprietary software, but empower users so they can be empowered users with access to the relevant software and they know how to participate in the open culture after the training ends. Many in the digital inclusion sector are intimidated by free and open source software, believing they need a higher level than basic skills to use the software effectively. Breaking down the image of free and open source software and making it more approachable is essential to ensure lower skills users can not only access and use digital technologies but are empowered by them. The Open-AE consortium would like to present their work to FOSDEM to be engaged in a dialogue with developers and the open source community in activities directed to bridge the digital skills gap, to know what work developers are doing, but also engage in the open community in a direct capacity. Two partners based in Brussels ALL DIGITAL a European network, and Maks, Medie en Actie in Kureghem, will present the work. The presentation will go over the need to work in the field of digital inclusion. The presentation will go over the challenges in the digital inclusion with approaching free and open source technologies, the process of how the curriculum was developed, the curriculum itself, and how to scale this movement and carry it further.