Youth unemployment is one of the mayor problems Europe is facing, unemployment levels among young adults are very high. In 2016, more than 6,3 million young people (aged 15-24 years) were neither in employment nor in education or training (NEETs) in the EU. In most EU countries, youth unemployment rates doubles overall unemployment rates. The EC communication “Investing in Europe´s Youth” indicates that action is needed to provide: Better opportunities to access employment; Better opportunities through education and training and Better opportunities for solidarity, learning mobility and participation. YSM addresses all 3 areas. There is an Increased need for skills, competences and knowledge related to digitally enhanced design and manufacturing, such as 3D printing, laser cutting, design thinking and prototyping. These skills are highly demanded in the labour market and will become more relevant in the years to come. At the same time, the labour market demands versatile employees capable of working in teams and contribute to innovation. Co-creation, co-design and cooperation skills are pivotal thus for employability. All these skills are related to what is known as the “maker” culture, an environment in which different skills and competences come together, taking maximum advantage of digital tools, software and machinery to co-create, co-design and develop innovative products or services. Fablabs or living labs have been growing fast in the last years. Despite the fact that these entities can provide the connection with the demands of the labour market and with methods which are very well suited for young people, their users tend to be adults and collaboration with young people and the VET system is not developing at the same pace. YSM addresses these challenges by developing a coherent programme which reaches young people enrolled in the VET system, and provides them with the aforementioned skills and competences, through a cascaded approach in which they are reached through their teachers and schools. Integrating the programme into the school activities (either as curricular or extra-curricular activities) increase the reach of the programme, and the supervision and guidance of teachers ensures adequate take-up and acquisition of the envisaged skills and competences. A parallel development in society is the increased social awareness and consciousness at all levels of society (and especially among young people) about the social and environmental impact of their actions and decisions. In this line, there is growing social awareness for the challenges faced by those with special needs, e.g. with physical impairments, elderly, etc. Social inclusion and full integration of these groups in society is a focal point in European and national policies, especially in view of an ageing population. YSM acts at the cross roads the described challenges, by providing a programme which provides VET students with highly demanded skills and competences, allowing them to put these into practice developing a social object, artefact or prototype which contributes and alleviates the challenges faced by people with special needs in their every life. This can only be achieved with proper guidance and support and ensuring that the skills and competences are acquired properly. The programme can thus not exist without the involvement of teachers who need to transmit the knowledge and guide the learning process. As such YMS puts emphasis on their role. They will need to similar types of skills and competences as their students so as to be able to transfer this knowledge to them. Although specific teachers might have knowledge and skills on a particular component of the technical skills, e.g. 3D printing, they need a more comprehensive and wider set of skills to be able to implement the programme with their students. YOUNG SOCIAL MAKERS lays the foundations for a learning programme in the field of education for students in VET, and give them the knowledge, skills and competences to ideate, design and prototype social objects which cover the needs of people with special needs, using digitally enhanced manufacturing tools and machinery, such as 3D printing, laser cutting, rapid prototyping and design thinking. At the same time they will acquire, through working together on the social objects, co-creation, co-design and co-operation skills (horizontal skills in high demand by the labour market).

"According to both European and national evidence, a range of soft skills will become increasingly important for both ICT specialists and the rest of the sector’s workforce. The main non-IT skills demanded in ICT sector include business skills (creativity, innovation, customer service, sales), project management, communication and foreign language skills (Source: CEDEFOP, EU Skills Panorama Analytical Highlight, 2012).The project partners using the above statement as a basis for their wok, had on one hand analysed European Level Research and on the other carried out local research in attempt to identify themost important/ necessary soft skills in the ICT sector of their regions. Analysis of secondary sources (national/ regional reports, studies, etc.) and fieldwork showed that there is a wide range of soft skills that the employers and staff of ICT micro-companies should possess in order to be successful. There is no doubt that all soft skills are useful and desirable in any company; at the same time there are some differences in partner regions in prioritizing all the different skills. Assuming that the findings of desk research and expert interviews are equally important, the most important soft skills to be developed in the ICT micro-companies in partner regions are:Communication, Problem solving, Teamwork, Learning mindset, Creativity, Leadership, Strategic thinking, Customer service, Innovation and Risk managementThe SKILLS+ project aimed to improve the competitiveness of micro-enterprises in ICT sector by introducing a soft skills development programme covering the above described areas, thus encouraging sustainable development of these companies. The objectives of SKILLS+ included needs analysis; sharing best practices and methodologies for the development of soft skills; adaptation of existing development programmes and materials and complementing them with new materials to create a new, tailored, multilingual programme specifically and directly aimed at the soft skills that are most needed in micro-sized ICT firms; developing an online learning space; testing and evaluation; creation of local and international networking and cooperation opportunities for the target group and stakeholders; dissemination and preparation of appropriate mechanisms/processes for further exploitation of project results.The SKILLS+ Learning Space (e-learning platform) focuses on the soft skills most needed by people in micro-companies of ICT sector and includes different types of learning resources and tools - the more ""traditional"" reading resources are supported by educational videos carefully selected to support the theoretical presentation, practical advice on applying the lessons learnt to the learners’ own environment, self assessment questions, references and further suggested study materials. The innovative concept employed within the Skills+ Learning Space is the so-called single-concept learning or “thin slicing”. Considering the short attention spans so common today, single concept or bite-size learning focuses on one behavior change, one narrow concept and one slim goal at a time. Thin slicing is about isolating a single learning concept and, with very limited information, delivering a powerful impact. The SKILLS+ learning programme is therefore made of small e-learning ""snacks"" that demonstrate how specific skill works in different situations. Then the learning experience has been integrated into a blended learning intervention, involving the project partners' trainer experts as facilitators in the learning process. The project has been implemented by a consortium of 6 partners from 5 European countries spanning from North to South of Europe (Romania, Spain, Cyprus, Netherlands, Norway). It includes organisations involved in training, consulting, research, business incubation, association activities, thus allowing to combine different views and experiences and achieve the expected impact of the project. The main outcomes are the SKILLS+ Development Programme, Learning Resources and Online Learning Platform in Romanian, Spanish, Greek, Dutch, Norwegian and English, which has been tested and validated in all project countries. The project has also produced a number of resources and tools that were used for dissemination (project website, e-leaflets, newsletters, social media sites), to promote the project and exploit its results.The primary target group of the project were employers and employees of micro-enterprises in ICT sector. The project has increased their access to training and has improved their competences in the area of soft skills. 124 persons participated in pilot training; and over 10.000 unique visitors have accessed the project webpage and open learning resources in the learning platform, which are available free of charge. 28 ICT and consultancy businesses joined the project as associated partners, their contact be"

Integrating deaf people into the job market is a key challenge; more than 50 % of the 1 million deaf people in Europe are unemployed, and those who are employed are often in low-skilled and low-paid jobs.Access to digital jobs and professional VET programs in ICT for deaf and hard-of-hearing people is severely affected by the lack of proper field-specific terminology in the different sign languages, although the needs analysis conducted previously to the submission of this proposal has highlighted a rising trend in deaf entrepreneurship within the digital and ICT sector (ref. field research carried out by the project “Deaf Enterprise”, KA2 2016-1-UK01-KA202-024361, see innovation and complementarity section).The employment rate in ICT is going through a really positive trend in the last years; in fact, according to Eurostat, the number of ICT specialists in the EU grew by 39.1 % from 2011 to 2018, over 6 times as high as the increase (6.5 %) for total employment (shorturl.at/bepE0).As with any other language, lexical wealth of sign languages gets updated in accordance with use and diffusion of terms. New lexical resources for digital and ICT are lagging behind in sign languages, due to the common but misguided myth that written text can be sufficient for deaf people to understand and being able to express themselves, particularly with regards to the field of digital and ICT. According to the European Federation of Hard of Hearing People, there are 52 million European citizens affected by hearing disabilities of any kind, and national sign languages are to be considered their mother tongues. Access to sign languages is comparable to a Human Right, allowing them to be fully included in the daily life of their society. As such, the existing lexicon gap in the digital and ICT domain of sign languages has to be overcome in order to guarantee equal opportunities in accessing the ‘digital community’ of professionals for people with hearing disabilities.The project aims to develop the “EU Digital Framework for Sign Languages”, i.e. an analytical and descriptive database providing the main sign language resources in is (international sign) related to the lexical domain of digital and ICT. The framework will be mainly represented by an e-glossary containing at least 500 lemmas in IS, distributed in five key digital subdomains: 1.Computer science; 2.Cloud networking; 3.Internet of Things (IoT); 4.Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics5.Audiovisual and media production. Each entry of the glossary will be augmented with a short video showing how to properly sign it plus additional information like etymology, usage scenarios and situational contexts. Where a lexical gap is detected, new signs will be developed according to the current rules of new signs formation. Apart from the language academic interest, this project pursues the full integration of D/deaf individuals into professional and VET contexts with a degree of digital/ICT intensity. Therefore, the results are thought to be used and adopted by both D/deaf and hearing people, to favour the spread of deaf culture and encourage dialogue and inclusion. To this end, the “Guidelines for the inclusion of D/deaf workers in digital and ICT settings” will be delivered in the final stage of the project.The main target group is represented by D/deaf individuals about to enter the job market in the fields of digital and ICT, then also engaged in VET related training programmes. As a secondary indirect TG, the project encourages the uptake of results by VET trainers, employers and entrepreneurs in the field, sign language interpreters and schools, associations for the inclusion of people with hearing disabilities, who will benefit from project results.

"FUTURE (Foster, mUltiply and connecT adUlt Edcation) is project for the exchange of good practices that aims to create and promote innovation in the adult education sector, with the objective of fully embracing digital education. Specifically, the project focused on the analysis and understanding of future scenarios for the adult education sector, related to the use of digital-supported tools and methodologies for educational dynamics, teaching processes, inclusive learning and teaching methods for adults.The project was born from an initiative of the European Digital Learning Network and its members (some part of this consortium), which dates back to the European survey promoted between May and September 2017. The consultation “What do you think about the future of digital Education and Training in EU? "" aimed to understand the perspective of those who work in education and training with a bottom-up approach. The intent was to collect relevant data from professionals in this area, gathering a clear picture of the ""As is"" situation and suggestions for improvement and changes. The survey (counting 1000 people engaged at various degrees in the world of education and sponsored as a Pledge of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition) allowed collecting valuable information about education and training, with a dedicated focus on Adult Education. FUTURE produced the following results: 1. a collection of case studies relating to the most effective methodologies applied to learning through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT); 2. a database of tools available online, free, customizable, open-source and easily adaptable to multiple training subjects, analyzed and decoded by the project partners according to their orientation to be adapted on the needs of trainers and students; 3. An online repository (Future kit) collecting the resources developed in the previous two points.A minimum of two educators from each partner was involved in the pilot test of the results produced, in order to validate the case studies and the tools collected in terms of relevance, effectiveness, degree of customization and accessibility. The selection of educators for the pilot test was carried out by each partner within their own national and educational context, thus ensuring the necessary geographical coverage and the representation of various local and national Adult Education sectors. In addition, the feedback collected from the direct target group of the project made it possible to verify the potential impact of the resources obtained among professionals in the sector, thus using the responses collected to refine the results according to a co-creation process.The rproject results have been mainly aimed at adult education educators, providing them with practical tools for improving their skills, in consistency with the strategy ""Upskilling Pathways: New Opportunities for Adults"" (EU 19.12.16 on improvement paths for skill level: new opportunities for adults). In accordance with its pillars, FUTURE's activities have supported initial training and continuing professional development of dedicated staff for the delivery of skills level improvement paths, in particular teachers and professional trainers.FUTURE has shown a significant potential for transferring and disseminating its results on various sectors of education, thanks in particular to the implicit transversal nature of digital skills and the participatory methodology used for the development of project results. In fact, the concept of digital education does not relate exclusively to the field of adult education, but it embraces instead the whole education sector, according to a horizontal approach of mutual contamination and interdisciplinarity. Based on this principle, the products of the project have been designed in order to facilitate an application as flexible as possible, using a simple and never excessively technical language in order to be accessible to a wide audience."