Brussels, 07/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 7 November, Neelie Kroes, the Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, welcomed the commitment made by the Lithuanian public services responsible for education, libraries, digital and ITC, to promote skills and job creation in the digital sector in Lithuania. Eleven organisations and partner groups signed a memorandum of understanding to officially create the “Lithuanian Digital Coalition” in Vilnius at ICT 2013, an event promoting digital innovation, organised by the European Commission in partnership with the Lithuanian Presidency, which opened on 6 November. The coalition aims to address the shortage of people with information technology skills, promote training programmes based on lifelong learning and promote public awareness about the importance of digital culture and information technology skills.
ICT 2013 also provided the Commission with an opportunity to award the following awards: 1) Digital Woman of the Year went to Sasha Bezuhanova (Bulgaria), Chairperson of the Bulgarian Centre of Women in Technology; 2) Digital Girl of the Year went to Lune Victoria Van Eewijk (Belgium) in the 10 years and younger category and Amy Mather (United Kingdom) in the 11-14 category. Sasha Bezuhanova develops interactive games and films and designs robots, whilst, Lune Victoria Van Eewijk has already been coding for three years and Amy Mather teaches coding to pupils in her school. (IL/transl.fl)