Over recent years social inclusion of seniors emerged as one of the most pressing priorities for EU policymakers. Negative demographic trends along with rapidly increasing penetration of digital technologies in virtually every aspect of human living have promoted the elderly population (seniors) into one of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged societal groups. In this context, digital literacy can no longer be considered an advantage but a necessity for the elderly population.
The aim of BOOMER is to provide solutions for the well-known problem of the elderly population through real-world applicable and easy-to-understand educational content for the upbringing of digital skills and social inclusion. The addressed problem is recognised under several priorities of the Erasmus+ programme and existing data clearly show a level of digital skills among the elderly population which makes them particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged in a digital era.
The main intangible product of BOOMER will be the educational content. Courses specifically for the elderly population with low digital skills and competencies will be designed and delivered. All educational content will be freely available through BOOMER Virtual Corner. The structure of the consortium enables us to utilise the knowledge of social, learning, and the technical dimension of education of the elderly population in order to develop comprehensive, applicable, and easy-to-use educational content.
We are pleased to announce that the BOOMER Virtual Corner is now available in English on www.digital-boomer.eu! BOOMER Virtual Corner is the open educational resource (OER) platform that will host the main results of the project, and will be available for the duration of the project and even 2 years after its completion. The platform is available openly and completely free of charge, user-friendly and responsive, so that seniors can improve their digital skills in order to bridge the digital divide. Soon, the platform will also be available in German, Spanish, Croatian and Italian in order to reach a wider audience. BOOMER is a project co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, and is developed by a consortium of 8 partners from 5 countries (Croatia, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Germany). The project has the very clear and concrete objective of contributing to the bridging of intergenerational divide, allowing active participation in everyday life of ageing citizens and promoting social inclusion of digitally vulnerable social group. Keep up to date with the project on BOOMER Virtual Corner and on the social networks Facebook and YouTube.
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
We are pleased to announce that the BOOMER project "Booming digital literacy skills among elderly population" has been approved in the framework of the Erasmus+ programme, within the field of Adult Education. 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. BOOMER tackles these issues by exploiting synergies between representatives of almost entire ecosystem aimed at bridging of intergenerational and social divide caused by digital transformation. The co-funded project, which will be developed from September 2022 to August 2024, will involve a consortium of 8 partners from 5 different countries (Croatia, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain), who will combine their knowledge and expertise to create synergies and bring the project's implementation to a successful conclusion.