To help bridge the digital skills gap in Europe, the European Commission has created the Digital Skills and Jobs Platform, the new home of high-quality information, initiatives and resources on digital skills from across Europe.

Digital technologies provide us with a world of possibilities at our fingertips. Never before have we enjoyed so many opportunities to learn, exchange, participate and create. In 2021, this statement rings truer than ever: in the past year, we have collectively taken a digital leap, and digital means of communication have proven nothing short of vital for our societies to keep functioning in the face of a global health crisis.

Today, 11^th February 2020, we celebrate Safer Internet Day (SID) – the annual flagship campaign under the European Strategy for Better Internet for Children.

On Thursday, 21 November 2019, the Safer Internet Forum (SIF) will take place in Brussels Belgium. With a theme of "From online violence to digital respect", it will also celebrate 20 years of safer/better internet funding by the European Commission.

In a world that is increasingly dependent on technology and the internet, it comes as no surprise that social media is practically omnipresent in young people's lives. More often than not it is the negative effects of social media that we hear about, while the positives are frequently overlooked. Social media can contribute massively to children and young people's education, preparing them to become active and well-informed individuals, and providing them with opportunities to learn, develop, interact and find emotional support.

The seventh edition of EU Code Week will take place 5-20 October 2019. Ahead of this, teachers, trainers and activity organisers will get a chance to use new training opportunities and learning resources to reach more schoolchildren in the EU and Western Balkans.

Thanks to the first edition of the European Media Literacy Week, media literacy is on everyone's lips! So what can teachers do to boost their and their students' media literacy skills? One exciting thing to have on the radar is the Social Media Literacy for Change MOOC (massive open online course), taking place on 29 April until 12 June 2019. The MOOC aims to help European citizens in general and young people in particular, become active, creative and well-informed citizens of the digital world.

On Tuesday, 5 February 2019, the Safer Internet Day campaign turned 16 – and what a great day it was! Under the unifying slogan of "Together for a better internet", we called upon all stakeholders to join forces and bring their contribution to making the internet a safer and better place for all – especially for children and young people.

Young people from all over Europe are showing a growing appetite for coding activities, robotics and computational thinking, as the record participation in EU Code Week clearly reveals. The number of people taking part has grown from 10,000 to 2.7 million in just six years. The 2019 edition will take place from 5 to 20 October.

The early school leaving phenomenon was examined in depth during the DIS-CODE project coming to an end in December. After two years of collaboration between teachers, students and organisations from Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Italy and Portugal, the policy recommendations are available for policy makers and other stakeholders. The project conducted research and workshops in order to define which innovative teaching methods would benefit students that face the risk of dropping out, or are in the need of assistance.