EucA, Social Warning and MeOut did it again! We brought together in Szeged, Hungary on 20-23 March 66 participants from 13 EU countries to exchange ideas and find solutions for the challenges of the digital era.
Are we secure in a digitalized world? Is the EU prepared to face the challenges of digitalization?
The event started with the intervention of two experts who introduced the participants to the topics. Dezdemóna Kovács (law student, student ambassador and international student board member of EUGLOH, and expert on cybersecurity) explained the basics of cybersecurity: essential concepts, geopolitics, diplomacy.
Anita Pelle (PhD in Economics, professor at the University of Szeged, holder of a Jean Monnet Chair) talked about the EU cybersecurity strategy.
The first day, participants fought for victory using the best weapon we have: words. During the Oxford-Style Debate they were divided into “debaters” and “audience” with two consecutive motions: “ Are you willing to limit freedom of expression on the internet to tackle disinformation?”and “ Is it feasible for consumers and businesses to be independent of big companies? Would you trade the efficiency of big e-commerce companies (Amazon, eBay, etc) for trading directly with small businesses? “
The second day was dedicated to the Idea Challenge, a format of group work to collect innovative ideas. They were divided into seven groups:
The “Action Teams” worked on the design of 10 online awareness campaigns andon the dissemination plans to implement them after the event;
two “Policy Teams” worked on 4 policy proposals and their post-event action plan to present to policy makers.
One of the winning Action Teams was the design of "Dough Not Agree", a campaign of raising awareness for preventing cookie misuse, aimed at providing higher cybersecurity.
ON the other side, the winning Policy Team proposed an implementation plan for the “European Digital Identity Wallet (EDIW)” EDIW is an app that will enable the user to securely request and obtain, store, select, combine and share, in a manner that is transparent to and traceable by the user, the necessary legal person identification data and electronic attestation of attributes to authenticate online and offline in order to use online public and private services.
All groups did an amazing job!
“I am so happy to have come to Szeged. I challenged myself in the debate and the policy proposal teams, I learned about cybersecurity and the European Union approach to the topic. I met people from all over Europe and some from non-European countries, and being able to be with all of them for 3 days has been amazing and so much fun.” said r. One of the participants from Italy.
L. from Belgium commented the event saying “Something that everyone should experience. It was educational, informative and challenging”.
A special acknowledgment to all the participants from all over Europe: 66 citizens - 31 from Hungary (4 from Szeged, 2 from Pecs, 2 from Szombathely, 1 from Bonyhád, 22 from Budapest), 10 from Italy (1 from Ottaviano, 1 from Turin, 2 from Rome, 1 from Campobasso, 1 from Brescia, 1 from Perugia, 1 from Maracalagonis, 1 from Sessa Aurunca, 1 from Ploaghe), 8 from Spain (1 from Camarzana de Tera, 1 from Alcobendas, 1 from Oviedo, 4 from Madrid, 1 from Algeciras), 2 from Belgium (1 from Brussels, 1 from Louvain-la-Neuve), 1 from Austria (Salzburg), 3 from Portugal (all from Lisbon), 1 from Thessaloniki (Greece), 2 from Slovenia (1 from Krško, 1 from Kranj), 2 from Poland (1 from Rybnik, 1 from Warsaw), 1 from Serbia (Belgrade), 1 from Ireland (Roscommon), 1 from France (Versailles), 3 from Romania (1 from Fâncel, 1 from Miercurea Ciuc, 1 from Târgu Mureș).
What's next?
Before the next event, participants will update us on the implementation of their projects and will bring proposals to policy makers.
Stay tuned!