Fight social and environmental exclusion: The e-inclusion Ministerial Conference

Daniela.Opp — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:11:00 GMT

At the beginning of December I had the opportunity to participate in the e-inclusion Ministerial and Expo in Vienna, where HP was one of the main sponsors. HP presented our latest accessibility products and showed some great solutions on web accessibility. We integrate accessibility into our HP products and website development process in order to improve user experience. This is accomplished by buttons identified by touch, ports and switches positioned within easy reach and also large adjustable displays.

The event is organized on an annual basis by the European Commission. This year there were 90 exhibition stands, more than 130 speakers and nearly 1500 delegates who all talked about or presented their approach on how information and communication technologies can fight social and economic exclusion.

The conference focused on bringing together many actors of civil society, the economy and the government to exchange their knowledge and best practices, to honour best practices (e-inclusion awards) and to create a discussion forum about different initiatives and the way forward. The exhibition area constituted a great pool of existing approaches and ideas and it was exciting to see what’s already out there.

This is the second year that we have participated in this event. We had one exhibition stand where I presented our GET-IT programme, which aims at fostering entrepreneurship among young graduates aged between 16-25 in Europe, Middle East and Africa. I presented details on our newly launched GET-IT City portal, which allows us to reach students beyond the classroom. The portal gives students access to training and enables them to receive useful tips for establishing an enterprise. Students can learn IT and important business skills in an entertaining way, with online games and videos. Click here to get your own impression about GET-IT City and let me know what you think.

In addition to our exhibition stand, the lead for our organization, Gabriele Zedlmayer, Vice President, Corporate Marketing and Global Citizenship, Hewlett Packard, Europe, Middle East and Africa, delivered a keynote speech about digital literacy. Gabi made it clear that technology access is a key factor in bridging the digital divide. But access is not enough: eSkills are needed to participate in the information society.

I really enjoyed some very fruitful conversations with many important HP stakeholders. Through these discussions I gleaned more ideas on how we can make our social investments even more relevant to society.

Daniela Opp, Manager, Social Investment and Economic Development

CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa : social investment, EU

Fight social and environmental exclusion: The e-inclusion Ministerial Conference