UNITING

Many actions are undertaken by different stakeholders but other levels also play a significant role. The objective of this axis is to unite these actions and to pool efforts in order to meet a common objective: the appropriation of digital technology by all citizens. It is also essential to objectify the data to be able to quantify the progress made.

More information in the 2021 Annual Report (FR/NL).

Recommendations

The objective of this pillar is to ensure that users that have low digital literacy are taken into consideration in the development of digital public services.

The "Digital Brussels" ordinance project (FR/NL), set up by easy.brussels, aims to digitalise administrative services ("digital by default") and to train and support the inhabitants of Brussels in these procedures while keeping an alternative for people who have dropped out.

To develop inclusive recommendations and a technical package for IT developers, the Digital Inclusion Coordination and CAWaB worked on inclusive recommendations and a technical package based on a test of two digitised public services.

Coordination

The Digital Inclusion Coordination is currently composed of three people:

the Digital Inclusion Coordinator: Tania Maamary
a Digital Inclusion Officer: Narjiss Rachiq
a Digital Inclusion Officer: Hugues Marchal

Ensuring coordination at a regional level allows an overall view of the actions carried out and ensure synchronicity with actions undertaken at other levels (local, regional, federal and European). To do this, the Coordination has developed a file for managing deliverables and the budget. This file has been approved by the COPIL and the implementation is regularly presented to the WG members.

The Digital Inclusion Coordination mobilises the stakeholders of digital appropriation, be they public, private or associative, to include them in the actions and in the Working Groups, with the aim of increasing collaboration between participants. This is how the DIC was able to create a broad ecosystem of digital inclusion stakeholders. The Digital Inclusion Coordination has thus, over time, become the single point of contact for digital inclusion stakeholders.

The Coordination regularly takes part in a number of events to exchange information on the various activities carried out in the Region and increase the visibility of the Digital Appropriation Plan:

The e-inclusion taskforce created by Mediawijs in Flanders. The involvement of the Digital Inclusion Coordination in this taskforce enables it to position the Region as a pivot and link between the north and the south of the country.
A number of meetings have been held between Digital Wallonia, the Digital Agency and DIC to establish potential partnerships and collaborations and to create synergies between the regional digital inclusion plans.
On several occasions, the DIC has met with BOSA, the administration and the federal authorities in charge of the digital transition, for the digital helpers project or during the e-skills Council, which aims to define Belgium's Smart strategy.
DIC creates partnerships with the private sector by participating in the DigitALL ecosystem coordinated by BNP Paribas Fortis and Proximus.
The Digital Inclusion Coordinator has officially joined the Digital Inclusion Support Committee organised by the King Baudouin Foundation and participates in the various meetings as an expert.
The DIC is involved in DigiSkills Belgium, the ecosystem of initiatives that aims to increase the digital skills of Belgian citizens and organisations.
The DIC is also part of the European MEDICI programme. It was invited to share its good practices on their platform.

Studies and barometers

The Digital Inclusion Coordination regularly conducts studies to define the audiences. These studies allow the DIC to continue to make recommendations to the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region on the actions to be taken in the future to help people who are removed from the digital world.

Knowledge of the digital divide also comes from studies conducted by the Brussels academic world (including Perrine Brotcorne, Researcher at CIRTES and Assistant at the FOPES, Catholic University of Louvain, via the analysis of the digital divide in the Brussels-Capital Region), the private sector (notably the King Baudouin Foundation and its Barometer of Digital Inclusion in Belgium) and the Region's partners (IBSA, with statistics on "Brussels residents and their use of ICT"). These studies, when combined, provide an overall view of the situation in the Brussels Region.

Additional studies of this type will be conducted during the legislature to continue to identify and assess people in the digital divide, their needs and their digital skills.