Case studies

Meet Alexander Dimitrov, the President of Association GLAS, and also the Chief editor of glaspress, an online media. Their association mainly deals with young people from Bosilegrad – a small almot 5000 citizen town. They are the organizers of the International Children’s Easter Festival, which is hosted in Bosilegrad and gathers together over 400 children and young people from various countries each year. The International Children’s Easter Festival has lined up next to the best European festivals and received the EFFE quality label for 2015 and 2016. The EFFE quality label is part of the European Commission’s initiative – Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe (EFFE) – www.effe.eu, run by the European Festivals Association (EFA).

For several years now they successfully host a lot of international creatives from different countries, who are invited to their hometown for “Bosilegrad in Color” – en plein air – painting outdoors.

How did the pandemic affect your activities?

As I mentioned the pandemic was one of the biggest challenges that we faced during the last years, mostly because of the difficulties it presented to the organisation of our annual International Children’s Easter Festival. This festival has a lot of history. Now it would be its year #30. Never it has been organised in any other way than in public and in person. So, for us when the pandemic started and when we were faced with all the governmental restrictions, etc., we tried to figure out how we can conduct this event using online and digital tools.

I was thinking and consulting our festival board, and we decided that we can try and organise an online Easter festival. With the assistance of one of my colleagues, who is an IT guy we tried to announce an online programme dedicated to the activities which are held within the festival, revolving around the the pictures of the children, how they create their Easter eggs, etc. Initially, we did not know exactly what digital tools and what skills we will need for the organisation of such an event. So, it was a great challenge for us and thanks only to the help of some of our more digitally competent colleagues we managed finally to have an online Festival.

The same goes also for the art planners (en plein air). The pandemic affected all these initiatives very negatively, because it was very difficult for us to host online such activities. We tried to engage all the young artists in an online way, but there were serious setbacks. However, in the following year 2021, we already knew how to hold these online events, what digital infrastructure we needed for such a new experience and how we should organise it. In the end, it was a great lesson.

Did you manage to find appropriate digital solutions to help your work?

In general, yes – as I told you, in the end, we actually managed to find a proper digital solution which to help us achieve our goals and help us organise and hold the planners and the Easter festival. However, now I’m thinking that we need to invest more time and more diligence in preparing and researching new ways, and new possibilities to organise and implement such online events. It would be very, very useful for us, especially to understand how to utilise better the capabilities of our online media.

What digital skills were most useful to you?

Again, I would like to stress on that glaspress is actually an online media, so practically in terms of the most appropriate and useful skills that we used, these were the digital skills and competences related to online media and information dissemination. Definitely, we already improved a lot since the pandemic, but absolutely we need to focus and develop also new skills and new competences in order to be sustainable, productive and efficient in the future.

What skills do you need to further develop your digital literacy?

What is really important for us is our online media portal. We are quite sure that it is currently underutilised, and it presents a lot of opportunities for our youngsters, for the target groups that we work with, and also for us in organisational terms. Our ability to disseminate news, to reach out to wider audiences, is very dependent on the online portal. Currently, because of the pandemic, for all the digital needs that we faced during it, now we are trying to find even more practical digital solutions. I’m very, very confident that we need to invest a lot of time, a lot of resources in training and upskilling in that direction, because this could mean a lot for us. The digital domains, the digital skills could provide a lot of opportunities for us.

Are you familiar with self-assessment tools and different learning platforms for increasing your skills/competence?

Honestly speaking, I’m not quite well-aware of such self-assessment tools for evaluating your own skills. Also, before the pandemic, we didn’t pay quite much attention to any online learning resources or training providers. Now, most definitely, we are very interested in such things, in such tools that your project provides and will be very happy to take part in any training or any activities related to this topic.

Meet Basilio Parmaliana, the marketing manager of Aqua consulting. He is responsible for managing the group’s communication and promoting its image in order to improve the brand awareness.

Aqua Consulting is a technological centre for digital research and development based in Barcellona P.G. Sicily. They boast the collaboration of over thirty IT and electronic engineers who are experts in the ICT sector. From the creation of native apps for smartphones, to the design of much more elaborate software.

“We need to approach new technologies with curiosity and not fear”

How did the pandemic affect your activities?

The pandemic has affected a lot on everyone’s life. I worked from home; it was a new experience, but it allowed me to be even more efficient from many points of view. On the side of our company, it worked with over three hundred hotels before the pandemic. During the lockdown we continued to work for free with many of them, remaining an important partner despite the adversities of this period.

Did you manage to find appropriate digital solutions to help your work?

Certainly, our company is digitally creative and always looking for new solutions. What happened during the pandemic has made us very aware of how technology and creative ideas can be a fundamental support in the management of critical situations. During the loockdown, for example, was born the idea of producing AR / VR technology (Oculus) and software focused on metaverse, now we are also launching ourselves into the world of hardware creation, we are constantly evolving and probably we don’t even know our limits.

What digital skills were most useful to you?

The idea of Nino Lo Schiavo, CEO and Founder of Aqua Consulting was to create a digital company that has its founding pillar in the flexibility of work and the autonomy of its workers. This has helped us in the pandemic period because we fully believe in smart working as we believe in people who work with us. So, the managing of the emergency did not represent a problem.

What skills do you need to further develop your digital literacy?

In general, I believe that to be able to bridge the digital gap you should be eager to learn and get involved. Surely the younger generations are favoured over the past. I think that each of us must take extra steps and approach new technologies with curiosity and not fear.

From my side I would like to increase my skills on some issues that we now hear so much about: metaverse, blockchain and machine learning.

Are you familiar with self-assessment tools and different learning platforms for increasing your skills/competence?

Aqua promotes the continuous training of its employees, we use e-learning tools and platforms. We have also created an academy, born near universities, where we can train our young digital talents.

We strongly believe in e-learning platforms, we have projects that involve schools and universities. From day one we invest in knowledge creation as a tool to overcome barriers and develop professional skills.

Meet Heiko Grein, the manager of a recording studio, who runs a musician promotion agency and is the head of the music network Songs & Whispers in Bremen, Germany. SONGS & WHISPERS” is a live – music and artist development network.

The agency [ps] promotion (www.pspromotion-bremen.com) based in Bremen (Germany) is managing the international music network “SONGS & WHISPERS” since 2009.

How did the pandemic affect your activities?

Everything I am doing is based on people and networks, on being in touch with each other and communicating with each other. And that was of course heavily impacted by the pandemic. It is not yet possible to say where the whole development will go afterwards.

Did you manage to find appropriate digital solutions to help your work?

I don’t think that the entertainment industry was lacking certain technologies. The technologies were available – but the audience was so focused on being part of the real world that they struggled finding alternatives in the digital world. The main challenge was in creating an atmosphere where an audience might accept a digital solution as an alternative to what they were used to experience as consumers of culture.

What digital skills were most useful to you?

The more people are capable of creating and using digital tools, it might help them solving future problems. Digital tools need to be used in combination with the analog world. This applies especially for kids, that need to be able to interact with digital technology.

What skills do you need to further develop your digital literacy?

A lot of people are used to Zoom for instance but they are not aware for example that there is a big difference in hearing in a spatial environment and the classical Zoom noisescape barrier. The technologies are already available but they are not used by a large group of people. The analog world of music is an entirely different world than the digital. It can be enriched by digital technologies and we are now taking first steps in the future of music and performances that combine these worlds.

Are you familiar with self-assessment tools and different learning platforms for increasing your skills/competence?

I did not yet use any tools or platforms to increase my digital competences, but I am aware that they exist and might have a look at them in the future.