#EDYS18, held under the High Patronage of the European Parliament, gathered in the Transilvania University of Brașov around 200 local, national and international participants from more than 10 countries. EDYS - European Digital Youth Summit 2018 had a diverse Opening Panel - welcoming government, academia and civil society representatives from Brașov and abroad - which made it eclectic and interesting both for the physical and online audience. The online presence of the event reached 35k social media users and our live transmission reached almost 20k users.
Regarding the two workshops, "EuroIMPACT Plus" and "Turn ONline", more than 50 local, national and international participants attended each workshop. "Turn ONline" focused on how to engage online and offline communities, focusing on questions such as ”What role does digital media have in forming online and offline communities?”, ”European youth projects – how do you engage youth in online and offline communities, when it comes to European youth projects?” while "EuroIMPACT Plus" focused on good practices of young people’s involvement in European funded projects and on key competencies which all individuals need for personal fulfillment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion, and employment:
➡️ Learning to learn;
➡️ Digital Competence;
➡️ Social and Civic competences;
➡️ Communication in foreign languages;
➡️ Cultural awareness and expression;
➡️ A sense of initiative and entrepreneurship;
➡️ Communication in the mother tongue;
➡️ Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology.
As a general conclusion, the main lessons from the morning at EDYS are that active participation is necessary for every aspect of our lives, from personal issues (like doing an academic exchange abroad) to political aspects that relate to our community. As the smartphone is in our hands, our (digital) involvement should also be visible, and we need to take the time and make an effort to be committedly behind it.