General details
EDIHs involved
Challenges
Digitalisation is changing the world at a fast pace, impacting all areas of life. This brings along various opportunities, but also risks. Both in everyday life as well as a professional context, digital skills are more important than ever. They are a requirement for competent usage of current and future technologies.
People need to be properly trained and qualified to keep up with the changing digitalised world and handle its challenges. Possible use cases and limitations of modern technology need to be well understood.
In Germany, apprenticeships currently often provide only inadequate instruction in these skills and qualifications. In most cases, the curricula do not contain any requirements for learning digital technologies and instead focus on classic and traditional work processes. In addition, managers of these companies often aren’t familiar with these technologies themselves and even if they are, there often isn’t enough room in the budget for expensive machinery for the apprentices to try out.
In rural areas there is the added challenge of access. Children and teenagers are especially impacted by this due to their inability to drive, which makes them reliant on public transport. The public transport system is often insufficient for getting students to extracurricular learning locations, where they can learn about and try out modern technologies.
Ultimately, there is often a lack of both in-house equipment and high-quality training programs needed to upskill employees and familiarise them with new technologies within the company.
Solutions
The non-profit organisation “Digitalum Wittgenstein gGmbH” is active in the mostly rural area of Siegen-Wittgenstein (Germany) and created the “Digitalum bus” as a rolling digital laboratory.
The bus aims to facilitate widespread improvement of digital skills across all demographics in the region of Siegen-Wittgenstein. People can meet digitalisation and reduce their fear associated with digital topics. It provides a space for encounters and exchange due to its informal and exploratory style of learning. Investing in know how and infrastructure will make sure the rural economy isn’t left behind in the everchanging world.
Even the construction of the bus proved to be a valuable learning experience for apprentices. A team of ten apprentices and three trainers custom-built the entire interior of the bus, finding the best layout to use the space effectively.
The project is 65% financed by LEADER funding with a grant that amounted to 140.000€. The remainder is provided by the Digitalum Wittgenstein gGmbH and its 17 shareholders from their own funds. EDIH SWF employees from the University of Siegen usually conduct the workshops and information events to provide the essential knowledge and content of the education formats.
The articulated bus spans 18 meters and combines a seminar room and a workshop in one vehicle. It is equipped with six Prusa 3D-printers in the front, a VR section in the articulated part of the bus with Oculus Quest VR glasses, a CO2 laser cutter, a drone, a 3D scanner, a thermoforming machine, a 360-degree camera, a green screen, film and sound equipment as well as iPads and notebooks. In the rear part of the bus a tiered seating area with a TV provides a place for presentations and discussions.
The bus can be used for a variety of events. Since April 2023 it has visited companies and schools with customised STEM-workshops. It has also been showcased at public events, such as trade fairs, where the open bus format allows visitors to explore the bus.
Results and Benefits
The success of the “Digitalum” relies significantly on the active involvement of the EDIH Südwestfalen employees. Since the project's inception, these employees have been regularly engaged in conducting workshops and information events for staff at the locations where the bus is stationed or has made a stop.
The workshops cover a range of topics such as Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, and specific methods and techniques. In the so-called “Open Bus Formats,” Digitalum Wittgenstein gGmbH also draws on the expertise of EDIH Südwestfalen. EDIH staff share their knowledge directly with visitors. These formats are less structured than traditional workshops, allowing visitors to independently explore the technologies on the bus and ask questions to the team present.
To make knowledge transfer on the bus more independent of EDIH staff in the long term, a Train-the-Trainer approach is currently being pursued. New trainers are trained during the events in the presence of experts from the University of Siegen. These experts provide the new trainers with the necessary knowledge so they can later pass it on to a changing audience independently.
Perceived social/economic impact
The Digitalum bus bridges the digital divide by providing access to advanced technologies for underserved people in rural areas and paving the way for a new way of hands-on learning. Stimulating young people’s curiosity and supporting them to develop their digital skills results in long-term educational benefits. These skills enable them to have more job opportunities and also contribute to economic growth in the region of Siegen-Wittgenstein.
A mobile lab like this is a cost-effective method of bringing various groups of people in the typically overlooked rural areas in contact with modern technology and deliver high-quality, up-to-date technological education to them. By giving seniors and other hard-to-reach groups the chance to engage with new technologies, the program can reduce feelings of isolation and promote lifelong learning. It can also empower them to better navigate the increasingly digital world.
Measurable data
Within its first year, the bus has been able to visit 28 events in total, with most but not all of them being held in the region of Siegen-Wittgenstein. With those events it has been able to reach more than 3.000 visitors. This also amounted to 750 hours of work for the Digitalum team as well as 2.000 km driven.
The focus on public events during its first year has multiple reasons. Public events provide a good opportunity to increase the awareness of this project. Since the project is still in its early stages, becoming more well-known is essential to make sure that people and institutions make use of its services. Another reason is the funding. The Digitalum bus receives a lot of its funding from the LEADER fund, which is aimed at improving widespread digitalisation in disadvantaged rural areas, not just among employees or apprentices. At public events, various kinds of visitors can stumble upon the bus and explore its technologies, even if they hadn’t been actively looking to learn more about this before.
Due to the current stage of the project, there is no structured documentation of key figures or evaluations yet. While more measurable results have yet to be realised, the potential impact of this concept is significant.
DMA score and results - Stage 0
The Digital Maturity Assessment (DMA) at stage 0 was conducted in collaboration with Digitalum Wittgenstein gGmbH. The "organisation" achieved an overall digital maturity level of 41%. It performed well in the domain of Digital Business Strategy, scoring 73%. However, there is room for improvement in areas such as Automation and Artificial Intelligence (12%), Data Governance (38%), and several other domains. It is important to note that Digitalum Wittgenstein gGmbH is not a traditional company or organisation. Therefore, the results should be looked at in detail. Many questions asked in the questionnaire did not apply to Digitalum Wittgenstein gGmbH.
Lessons learned
This project has made it evident that especially young people, so called digital natives, don’t have fewer digital deficits, but just different ones. They might be very proficient in the use of touchscreens but lack skills regarding work-related software like Excel. Many children and teenagers know about 3D printers but seeing them in videos doesn’t compare to trying them out and being able to watch it print a model they might have even designed themselves.
The bus format takes away the pressure and expectations that come along with a mandatory training someone was sent to by their school or job. The Digitalum staff are not teachers and don’t grade the participants. This fosters a comfortable atmosphere characterised by curiosity and exchange.
An issue the bus faces is the fact that most people are only tangentially aware of their own digital deficits and therefore can’t articulate their needs. They can’t define what kind of trainings on which topics they would benefit from and what skills they would like to attain by the end of it.
The open bus format circumvents this problem but long-term effective ways of matching educational trainings with the people who would benefit from them need to be found. It remains interesting to see in which ways this project will develop over time.
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