VRAILEXIA “Partnering Outside the Box: Digital and Artificial Intelligence Integrated Tools to Support Higher Education Students with Dyslexia”Students with dyslexia encounter several difficulties during their university career, leading to a greater rate of drops out with respect other kinds of students. Nowadays, tools for dyslexic students are mainly focused on primary and secondary school; conversely no standard methodologies are proposed for Higher Education. Starting from the attitude to visual thinking and creativity of dyslexics and their evidence neurodiversity. VRAILEXIA will develop learning tools and services for University dyslexic students to assure equal access and opportunity of success during their academic career and their lifelong learning experience.VRAILEXIA by using virtual reality and artificial intelligence will implement an e-learning adaptive digital tool (BESPECIAL) for supporting students with dyslexia. As a long-term objective VRAILEXIA will propose a sustainable teaching and training pattern for HEIs to allow them to boost their own strengths counteracting their seeming weakness.Moreover, VRAILEXIA wishes to emerge the mastery of thinking out of the box exploiting the ability to explore creative and unusual ideas that are not limited or controlled by rules or tradition.VRAILEXIA outcome is a network of HEIs piloting Hub engaged on a MoU for developing inclusion strategies for dyslexic students and enhance their opportunity of success during the academic career and integration into the labour market.VRAILEXIA’s general objective aims at changing the perception and implementing a tool to overlap dyslexic’s main difficulties with a positive impact on empowering their motivation and self- esteem. Consequently it will breed a common procedure within European Universities to assure services and learning environment based on student-centred vision and Universal Design Learning. The perspective is to enable Universities to develop strategies for inclusion of untapped students’ talents and strengths.Specific applied objectives:1.Design, develop and validate of “BESPECIAL” a digital tool for supporting students affected by learning disabilities, dyslexia in particular, through an e-learning platform based on artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically customize itself and adapt its contents to the dyslexic students’ needs. 2.Develop Virtual Reality test for the assessment of dyslexia profiles and for monitoring the level of motivation, anxiety, development of soft skills after the use of BESPECIAL. 3.Implement 2 training pilot paths for HEIs in order to implement respectively: a) training course for HE teachers to respond to the lack of competences and awareness in student- centred teaching methodology such as UDL b) a Pilot Crash Course on Creativity and Entrepreneurship for university students in order to boost up their visual thinking and mind-set skills.4.Assure the transferability of competences acquired during the training course in order to spread the student-centred approach within the HEIs;5.Build an OER Repository with a categorization of teaching and learning materials based on Universal Design principles available on line and specific contents developed within the project;6.Set up a MoU for clustering the actors/stakeholders to generate a European Network fostering a common strategy of inclusion within Higher Education targeted for students, teachers, administrative staff and as well Associated partners.VRAILEXIA leads to the following tangible results:--sustainable tools to support Higher Education providers in implementing inclusive learning approaches for dyslexic students;-an adaptive learning environment based on Informed Artificial Intelligence for supporting students with dyslexia;-a set of VR tests and a ‘strategy based on student- centred methods’ in order to motivate them in their lifelong learning process;-a common pattern shared within the network of Piloting Hubs fostering Universities capabilities to become innovative centres in supporting all students in their academic and job career.

<< Background >>The changes occurred in education due to the worldwide spread of COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid and accelerated development of new and smart technologies, and the economical and social changes affected fundamentally the educational approaches, people communication and cooperation in the educational community. Those advances influenced both teachers and students inspiration and motivation for the learning process. It’s common that teachers suffer stress and burnout factors that negative affect mood, social behavior and learning. Under these circumstances it’s obvious that the recently formed educational reality requires new skills from the teachers, resilience to stressful situations, ability to adapt in changes and the enhancement of digital skills. Additionally the new circumstances require from schools to develop a new model of adaptability in changes, a new vision and mission, an updated internal policy and plan in order to meet the expectations of a sustainable and digitally oriented future.<< Objectives >>The main purposes of this partnership, which involves school partners (4th GEL Rodou from Greece, Fyllingsdalenvideregåendeskole from Norway, Liceo Copernico from Italy), the University of the Aegean( from Greece) and educational institutions (ICON from Greece, Joniškio rajon Švietimo įstaigų vadovų asociacija from Lithuania and Umbrella from Georgia), are to strengthen teachers occupational profile with professional development opportunities, establish a positive and stress-free working environment, favor students development, create innovative structures within educational complexes and organization, increase educational institutions capacity and readiness, effectively manage the shift to digital education, foster understanding and trust among students from different societies, develop international cooperation and conflict management skills, and solidarity.<< Implementation >>Participants will communicate and collaborate mainly online, but they will also have the chances to meet live before the project completion, during the introductory transnational meeting in Rhodes, Greece, at the intermediate meeting in Lithuania and at the learning teaching event in Norway. During these meetings, partners have the opportunity to discuss procedural project issues, exchange ideas and experiences about the best practices which can be implemented, and also they will be trained under the mentoring of the University and by the specialized mentors of the institutions. In particular, the training will aim to strengthen teachers professional profile with stress management and control skills, to create attractive digital educational materials, to develop classroom management skills and to implement innovative teaching approaches. Live meetings will be also a great opportunity for the partners to know, accept and appreciate each other’s cultural background. In addition, during the project school partners (with the contribution of the University and the institutions) will design collaborative practices and scenarios, that will be implemented and evaluated in their schools by them and their students, alongside University’s supervision and procedures improvements. The scenarios will be interdisciplinary (environment, European values, STEAM, etc.) with the integration of digital tools, games and outdoor activities. Furthermore, online live dissemination events will be organized throughout the project (social networks will be also used), and at the end of the project a main multiplier event will take place in each country that participated in the partnership (Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Georgia and Norway). The event will be attended also by local educators, teachers, students, young people and parents.<< Results >>At the time of project’s completion, all partners are expected to have resilience to stress, adaptability to change, enhanced communication, collaboration and digital skills, and understand every change as a challenge for innovation. Additionally teachers will have enriched their repertoire. Students and young people will value diversity, understand multiculturalism, respect the physical environment and will be inspired to be active citizen. Teachers, students, young people and parents will improve their digital skills, will have the ability to control stress and will adopt green behaviours. All participating actors will strengthen their contacts network and be able to implement more similar projects in the future. Within the framework of the project, intellectual outputs will be produced, such as e-learning platform with plenty educational resources, examples with successful actions/scenarios in the past implemented, the burnout measurement tool, a project evaluation, evaluation tools, an internal educational policy plan and the sustainability report. The project results aim also to attract educational policy makers.

The project arises from the observation of the exponential increase economic and social vulnerability needs andsituations, generated by economic crises, identifying that one of the possible solutions to this emergency is the creationof innovative business models.It becomes essential for enlightened entrepreneurs, especially in countries that have a fragile socio-economic fabric,such as Bulgaria, Greece, Slovenia, Italy and Spain, to identify the value, in terms of the social impact of their businessor the social effect that each intervention generates on the community or on specific categories of beneficiaries.In this context of uncertainty, there is a new way of doing business: a model is introduced that sets aside forever theoutdated yardstick of profit as the only objective and parameter to assess the health of an entrepreneurial activity,choosing transparency, 360 ° sustainability (economic, social and environmental) and responsibility towards allstakeholders, including the environment and future generations as the guiding values.The need for skills, tools and approaches aimed at measuring and managing this value also increases, the developmentof which will be crucial for the evolution of the business ecosystem and social innovation in the EU.To date, 3,086 Benefit Corporations are certified in 150 sectors and 71 different countries.In Italy, despite being the first country in the world, after the USA, to have introduced the legal form of BenefitCompany as of 1 January 2016, there are almost 100 B-Corps; just 50 in Spain, while for Greece, Slovenia and Bulgariathere are long delays (Certified B-Corporation Community, 2020).Furthermore, in recent years, most of the studies and tools carried out have focused on large companies.With the SIMPLE project, on the other hand, we want to identify sustainability paths, business models and impactmeasurement methodologies that consider the specific features of SMEs, which constitute the production fabric of theEU countries involved, capitalizing on good business practices at national, European and international level.SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:1) To develop for 60 SME workers in Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Greece and Bulgaria, skills in social sustainability in termsof strategic paths, business models, organizational processes, measurement tools with the development and systematicadoption of a shared blended training offer (IO1 - TRAINING PROGRAMME FOR SUSTAINABILITY ANDSOCIAL BUSINESS INNOVATION)2) Promote digital integration in learning activities with the co-design and development of:a) Open Educational Resources, in the form of interactive, video pills for the corporate population of SMEs, in theEU partner reference territorial contexts, to increase a skills set in terms of social sustainability useful for theirorientation towards social innovation and immediate application in the business and work environmentb) SIM-Game (Social Impact Measurement Game) which, exploiting gaming and gamification logics, will be aninteractive recreational-educational container structured in episodes, each of which relates to skills and relative openeducational resources, capable of marking the evaluation process concurrently with learning, generating engagement,motivation and self-awareness.(IO2 - INTERACTIVE AND GAMIFIED OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES)3) Align 24 partnership trainers and consultants, involved in two transnational mobilities to:a) acquire the methodological references of INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN to elaborate the contents of the OER to berealized by producing interactive, training video pills and GAME-BASED LEARNING to incorporate and functionalizethe dynamics and game based mechanics to be applied to learning processes exploiting game logics to create a selectiveand detailed evaluation process on specific areas of competence and determining behaviours of corporate socialsustainabilityb) implement the functional plan to guide the target SMEs to measure social impact and guide learners in its applicationin target companies during company check-ups.4) Co-elaborate and standardize methods and tools to measure and manage social impact in target SMEs to allowworkers to conduct corporate check-ups to photograph the actual with respect to the planned social innovationobjectives and trace an action plan to guide companies in redesigning the business model by orienting their objectivesand methods to B-Corp and benefit Company logics. (IO3 - SOCIAL IMPACT MEASUREMENT PLAN)

<< Background >>The DiFree project stems by the continued growth of the freelance professional figure through Europe, especially those pertaining to the digital world. As of today, young people want to be self-employed and self-empowered. According to EUROSTAT 2018 data, the number of self-employed workers has reached 15.8% of total employment. There are approximately 32.9 million self-employed people working in the European Union, as of 2019. These numbers are sharply increasing as a consequence of the impact of the COVID19 emergency on work procedures, market needs and subsequent opportunities. Working as a digital freelancer is today a specific career path, requiring specific skills, soft and hard. In this context, graduates lack proper information and practical competencies which are needed for successfully managing a freelance career, due to the lack of previous exposure to it before they attempt such a career. Neither Universities nor companies working with freelance consultants usually provide for guidance or training on how to effectively be a freelancer, yet such competences seem to be expected in order to be active on the labor market and actually make a living from an online profession. This hinders the possibility for young people and graduates to actually consider the freelancing career or to successfully carry it out throughout time. Also, this lack of education and training sets the ground for several initiatives akin to Multi-Level Marketing or similar ones which seems very appealing for the digital and 'flexible' nature of the job but at the same time are unable to create long term solutions for the worker nor added value for the job market and the society as a whole. At the same time, digitalization and information and communication technology (ICT) can complement, enrich and transform education for the better, as well as accelerate progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4). In addition, in line with the features of the digital freelance lifestyle, this type of career can be particularly suitable for vulnerable workers, such as single parents, stay at home mothers, geographically disadvantaged workers, unemployed ones, people suffering from mobility impairments, etc. From a needs' perspective, the exploration of such career opportunities can prove to be a decisive choice for many young graduates or HE students.<< Objectives >>DiFree projects wants to fill the gap between the academic knowledge and training offered today to HE students and the current needs of a volatile and rapidly changing job market, where flexibility and digitalization are core competencies.For this reason, DiFree Consortium has an overall objective and several specific ones.OVERALL OBJECTIVE: provide HE students and graduates interested in the freelancing career with digital, entrepreneurial and job market-relevant knowledge, training and education. Learning by doing methodology will be applied, also cross-contaminating the activities with the involvement of companies relying on freelance work.SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES: - expose HE students and graduates to the freelance career from a practical and realistic perspective; - invite HE students and graduates to reflect on themself and self-assess their soft skills and competencies before they initiate a career - provide HE students and graduates with guidance and mentoring before, during, and after the choice of a freelancing career - offer to HE teachers training on the digital labor market and on digital entrepreneurship, subsequent needs in term of the workforce, and required competencies, so that these pieces of information can actually be channeled to a larger number of HE students; - create innovative, easily accessible and open-source educational material regarding the project topics that will be made available to and disseminated among all interested parties; - create a specialized Freelance Hub, virtual and physical place where the target group can find accurate and reliable information, guidance, mentoring programs, opportunities for life-long training, upskilling and reskilling. It will focus on transversal competencies and soft skills and therein students and graduates can meet, share knowledge, organize gatherings and events, invite personalities from the freelance community, etc.- offer to HEIs beyond the partnership and to potential freelancers not enrolled to the Partner HEIs with the same opportunities as those offered to the students of the Partner Universities, thanks to a Transferability Manual, made freely available to all those who desire to introduce digital and entrepreneurial skills in their teaching curriculum, regardless of the specific sector.<< Implementation >>The activities that will be carried out with the support of the ‘Project Management and Implementation grant’ will be (for their schedule, see the Gannt, Annex 1 - for details see the 'Management' section of the application) A1 – Management A2 – EvaluationA3 – Dissemination A4 – Preparation of the Management Plan A5 – Preparation of the Evaluation Plan A6 – Preparation of the Communication & Dissemination Plan A7 – Preparation of the Sustainability Plan A8 – Preparation of the Project LogoA9 – Building and maintenance of project website, preparation and translation of content A10 – Creating social media channels – FB, IG and LinkedIn A11 – Preparing and distributing project digital leafletsA12 – Preparing and distributing digital newsletters The activities that will be carried out with the support of the ‘Project Results grant’ will be (for their schedule, see the Gannt, Annex 1 - for details see the 'Project Results' section of the application) PR1 - In order to achieve PR1 “Toolbox ‘How to freelance online’’ for Higher Education students and graduates, in a time-bound and efficient manner, the following actions will be taken: PR1/A1 - desk review PR1/A2 – structured interviews to at least 5 senior successful freelancers PR1/A3 (during the 2nd TPM) – focus groups for best practices identification PR1/A4 - drafting phase PR1/A5 – Partners’ revision PR1/A6 – Summary translation in national languages PR1/A7 – Launch and PublicationPR2 - In order to achieve PR2 “Development of a repository of e-portfolios / digital CVs” in a time-bound and efficient manner, the following actions will be taken: PR2 /A1 Brainstorming PR2/A2 Data collection PR2/A3 IT development PR2/A4 CV templates creation PR2/A5 Indexing system (keywords) PR2/A6 Stakeholders engagement campaign PR2/A7 Launch and Publication PR2/A8 Website monitoring and moderationPR3 - In order to achieve PR3 “Mentorship program” in a time-bound and efficient manner, the following actions will be taken: PR3/A1, Program creation PR3/A2, Mentors engagement PR3/A3, Video interviews templates PR3/A4, Video recording PR3/A5, Guidelines drafting PR3/A6, Partners' reciprocal feedback PR3/A7, Translation of summary subtitles in national languages PR3/A8, National workshopsPR4 - In order to achieve PR4 “Development of a self-evaluation and self-vocational professional assessment” in a time-bound and efficient manner, the following actions will be taken: PR4/A1 Psychological and methodological research PR4/A2 Content creation PR4/A3 Focus groups for best solution identification PR4/A4 IT development PR4/A5 Summary translation in Italian, Greek, Portuguese and Spanish PR4/A6 Stakeholders engagement campaign PR4/A7 PublicationPR5 - In order to achieve PR5 “Establishment of Freelancers Hubs” in a time-bound and efficient manner, the following actions will be taken: PR5/A1 Brainstorming PR5/A2 Network creation PR5/A3 Website creation PR5/A4 Stakeholders engagement campaign PR5/A5 Content creation PR5/A6 PublicationPR6 - In order to achieve PR6 ‘Transferability Manual ‘What does it take? Setting the sustainability environment’ in a time-bound and efficient manner, the following actions will be taken: PR6/A1 Partners discuss the lesson learned in focus groups PR6/A2 All materials created are gathered and rationalized PR6/A3 All materials are translated in summary into national languages PR6/A4 Graphic layout PR6/A5 PublicationThe activities that will be carried out with the support of the ‘LTTAs grant’ will be (for their schedule, see the Gannt, Annex 1 - for details see the 'LTTAs' section of the application) LTTA1: Training for teachers on digital competences applied to the freelancing career. How to stimulate innovation among students; LTTA2: Training for learners on digital competences applied to the freelancing career. LTTA3: Leadership workshop for potential freelancers. + 6 Multiplier Events (see relevant section)<< Results >>The expected results of DiFree project are the following:- increased self-awareness of HE students and graduates in pursuing the digital freelancer career;- HE students and teachers exposed to, and trained on entrepreneurial and digital skills according to EntreComp and DigComp2.0 schemes;- increased uniformity and transferability capacities of resumes and CVs according to the EQF- HE students and teachers equipped with up-to-date soft skills, relevant for the current job market needs- Support the digitalization process and reward innovation in learning and teaching activities capable of being actual change-makers in the communication between academia and the corporate world- Strengthen the relationship between HEIs in general and the corporate sector, and more specifically establish a long lasting dialogue between Partner HEIs and involved companies and public bodies, interested in the freelance workforce.- Establish a physical as well and virtual place where young freelancers can find information on the freelance job market, guidance and mentorship, participate to innovative events, get into contact with potential clients, acquire market relevant notions and skills, assess themselves and share experiences, expectations and fears among peers in a protected environment- Support HEIs in Europe and in Partner countries interested in embedding self-entrepreneurial and digital skills in their academic curriculum, regardless of the specific thought subject.

Financial Technology (Fin Tech) means "Technology enabled financial innovations". There is a strong need to improve the competitiveness of the European Fin Tech sector, creating a common regulatory field across all countries which, while encouraging innovations in Big Data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Blockchain technologies, can correctly measure their risks. Europe is a broad mosaic of regulatory landscapes. Policy makers and regulators must move quickly to establish a new regulatory framework for emerging fintechs, without stifling their economic potential. The FIN-TECH project, under the EU's Horizon2020 funding scheme, aims to create a European training programme, aimed at providing shared risk management solutions that automatize compliance of Fintech companies (RegTech) and, at the same time, increases the efficiency of supervisory activities (SupTech). In other words, we aim at connecting FINancial supervision with TECHnological compliance, from which the acronym of the project: FIN-TECH. The project programme will be built jointly by 24 university and fntech partners that are established experts in fintech risk management, that will share knowledge with with regulators, supervisors and fintech associations and hubs from all 28 European Union countries, plus Switzerland. The goals of the project will be achieved through research activity in risk management models for Big data analytics, AI and Blockchain applications to finance, discussed in three different research workshops; two levels of knowledge exchange sessions: a training level, run at the location of the involved supervisor in each of the 29 countries, to achieve uniformity across Europe; a coding level, centralised at the location of six different fintech hubs. The project will be simultaneously disseminated and validated through a dedicated web site, social network activity, users feedback and validation by established bank, insurance and investment funds.