Dr. Monika Manolova of Sofia University in Bulgaria and consulted by members of 25 countries around the world.

Intro

Digital literacy is a regionally defined and culturally amplified topic, which concerns all nations and regions across the globe to a varying degree. While the speed of digitalization in the last couple of decades has improved the living standards and conditions in a variety of geographies across the globe, groups of people are left outside of the current wave of innovations. To mitigate this disparity, global entities, such as the UN could take a proactive stance to ensure that individuals with little or no digital literacy are up to par with the New Age of AI preventing further gaps in economic and lifestyle advancement.

On 09.03.2023, Dr. Monika Manolova (Digital National Alliance Bulgaria) hosted a meeting in collaboration with Dr. Haydee Sheombar (Kankan*Tree) and Jaisal Surana(MKAI.org) to implement a consultation on the topic of “Digital Literacy: the Great Divide” with organizations and experts from North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. Each of these organizations was invited to determine the key pain points and potential solutions that could be implemented at a more global scale. The focus is on addressing three core issues concerning the UN Digital Cooperation Roadmap.

On 28.03.2023 A second meeting was hosted to cover the aspects, which were not included in the previous meeting, to allow for confirmation of inputs and for further suggestions – including calls for action to the UN.

UN Digital Compact Consultation (09.03.2023 and 28.03.2023.

The outcome of these two meetings supports the UN’s aim for an inclusive and participatory process, managing to attract experts from a variety of countries, to voice a variety of issues in the digital realm. The consultation was attended by experts from 25 countries: Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Eritrea, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Türkiye, UAE, UK, USA

To read the full project click here: GDC-submission_Digital-National-Alliance-Bulgaria