One of the greatest achievements in the last century was the increase in average life expectancy, mainly due to advances in public health, technology and medicine. However, senior population is facing an increasingly technological society, which make them feel naturally excluded. This is due to the difficulty to handle and use the technology, the difficulty in access to this technology, the feeling of incapacity in learning new things, among other factors. The absence of digital skills in senior population is often synonymous of social isolation, segregation in access to information and services, loss of autonomy and increased sense of inability to adapt to the society. Indeed, improving digital skills in old adults is one way of improving their quality of life through an active lifestyle and freedom of choice and decisions. We aimed to develop an ICT Learning Programme to improve confidence, digital skills and online safety of senior population. The proposed learning program includes: 1) a dedicated website with information, training tools and resources for old adults and 2) provide access to face-to-face help and support, through an intergenerational and peer-to-peer approach. The draw up of recommendations for transferability of ICTskills4All results will also be a goal of the project. ICTskills4All seeks to promote an awareness learning in specific target groups, older adults aged 55 years and over, who have minimal or no engagement with digital technology. In ICTskills4All project, 200 old adults and 20 teenagers will be participating in pilot’s studies and online platform usability tests. The project starts with a revision of online resources and in-person educational programs dedicated to improve digital skills in old adults at regional, national, European and international levels. This revision will be used to create information, training tools and resource materials for the web platform, and to develop educational materials for the in-person pilots. The web platform will be developed taking into attention accessibility for old adults, with the purpose of guaranteeing a greater autonomy to use website content, such as vision, hearing, motor control and cognition. Educational materials for the in-person courses, as well as the web platform contents will be released in 5 European languages. After that, pilot’s studies will be run in order to evaluate and compare two in-person approaches to improve digital skills, intergenerational and peer-to-peer. Finally, the final web platform with educational materials will be launched, as well as a report of pilot’s results that includes recommendations. The recommendations that act as the main exploitation means of the project will be presented and distributed to all interested stakeholders and potential beneficiaries, including policy makers/educational public authorities and other key stakeholders. We expect to contribute with this project to increase the digital skills of older adults across Europe, through a free access to the educational material developed during project activities, and through the access to in-person support and help. Online and in-person support materials, and recommendations for transferability of ICTskills4All results will be kept as an open access resource to be widely used, which contribute to potential longer term benefits.
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