Digital Scaling for Social Enterprises: Empowering Impact and Innovation

ongoing

Digitalisation is fundamentally changing the way we work, innovate and interact, offering social enterprises (SEs) and their support organisations (SESOs) a real lever to scale and accelerate their impact. It also increases the resilience of SEs, e.g. in the context of war in Ukraine or admits Covid-19. Yet, SEs and SESOs face challenges in harnessing the potential of digitalisation, lacking crucial digital skills, knowledge and culture, affecting their operational capacity, access to opportunities and scaling. SESOs often lack the expertise to guide their members through the digital transition, compounding the challenges of navigating the digital landscape. Digitalising SMEs is a complex process requiring more than the adoption of technological advancements, admits the Covid-19 pandemic. It requires a paradigm shift accompanied by well-structured, tailored training pathways. Hence, DIGI-SEII has been developed by a consortium of 8 leading SE/digital ecosystem organisations to address the Transition Pathway (TP) Digital - action areas 7, 1, 5 and 6 as well as the 'Green' TP actions 1,4, and 5. DIGI-SEII will do so by deploying a hybrid approach to learning with e-learning formats, face-to-face training, tailored complementary services (peer-exchanges, mentorships, study visits & match-making activities) a hackathon for SEs& train-the-trainer event for SESOs. DIGI-SEII will 1) map skills gaps & needs, 2) develop its own Capacity-Building Package made of existing materials curated for the project& original curricula(WP3) delivered in a bite-size and modular approach (WP3,4,5,6), 3)integrate integrate an AI tool for pre- and post-training evaluation to guide participants and evaluate outcomes(WP3). The project has been built to carry a strong European and transnational significance by developing materials and methodologies that can be tailored and applied locally, regionally and nationally, across the EU, and by involving partners from varied SE and digital landscapes.