On 16th of June, was held the first International Conference: Digital Civil Society at the University for Information Science and Technology “St. Paul the Apostle” in Ohrid.
The conference was organized by Poraka Nova and the Municipality of Ohrid, as part of the SINet Project – Social Innovation Network, implemented by Poraka Nova in partnership with organizations from Croatia, Spain, and Italy, and supported by Europe for Citizens program.
In the last years under the project were organized 3 events in Italy – Community Forum; Spain – Public Debate; Croatia – Training Course.
The final event in Macedonia – Conference about Digital Civil Society, was a resume of all three events.
At the conference was introduced the SI Network and was presented as a community that supports others in the digitalization of solidarity.
The aim of the conference was to give instructions on how to use DIGITALIZATION and new technologies in the improvement and modernization of the civic sector, to increase solidarity and make a more profound social impact.
The conference consisted of four sessions, that were presented by 17 experts on different topics such as: Storytelling that matters, Social Impact Start-Ups, Digitalization Implemented in the Civil Society Sector, Digital Civil Society Level Up:
- At the “Storytelling that matters” sessions, the speakers spoke on the topic of visual storytelling, non-profit storytelling, and storytelling in animation.
- At the “Social Impact Start-Ups” sessions, the speakers spoke on the topics of Digital Tools for Starting a Career, local economy, inclusive social innovations, mobilizing private recourses for sustainable development fundraising platforms and many startups advices for newcomers
- At the “Digitalization Implemented in the Civil Society Sector” sessions, the speakers spoke on the topics of Design and Illustrations for social impact, Distance learning and digital tools, continuity of teaching, Digital Accessibility in Tourism, E-commerce for social enterprises – benefits and challenges.
- At the “Digital Civil Society Level Up” sessions, the speakers spoke on the topic of, Extended reality – Shaping our digital future, Trusted Decentralized Social Network Ecosystem, Open Data Hackathons, Estonian Experience – successful digital society.
Also, at the conference the research and toolkit was presented that was created during the project. Additionally, a partners meetings were organized on the 15th and 17th June, were the participants from the project partners organizations had time to reflect on the previous events, discuss about the dissemination and further potential collaborations and development of new projects.
We believe that the conference will become annual regional event, with new upgraded ideas, technologies, people and tools about digital world.
