Extracted from the official website of the Generalitat de Catalunya (free translation from Catalan).

Last September 10th the Secretary of Telecommunications and Information Society of the Generalitat de Catalunya (STSI) introduced the new Framework Agreement of ICT Services to representatives from the Catalan Official College of IT Engineers (COEIC), the Catalan Association of IT Companies (CatEI, where Gabriel Rissola, Director at D-O-T, serves as Secretary), the Catalan Association of OSS Companies (CatPL) and the Catalan Association of Informatics and Telematics Entrepreneurs (ASEITEC).

Last July 6 to 8 D-O-T organized a Research Workshop together with the University of Washington in the framework of the Research project "Immigrant Women, eSkills and Employability in Europe" co-funded by Microsoft Unlimited Potential programme. The workshop took place at Esplai Foundation premises, near to Barcelona's airport, and was attended by researchers from Holland, Italy, Hungary and Romania, plus the co-organizers Gabriel Rissola and Andrea Diaz (D-O-T, Barcelona/Spain) and Maria Garrido (University of Washington, Seattle/USA).

The main objective of this study is to understand the contribution of e-Skills to improve the employment opportunities for immigrant women in the European Union and the role of NGOs in this process. With this objective in mind, the research is based in four building blocks or paths that can contribute or impede the experiences of immigrant women in the labor market: 1) Autonomy or Independence; 2) Social inclusion; 3) Opportunities for e-Skills and employability training; and 4) Cultural inclusion.

The workshop in Barcelona was an opportunity for all the researchers involved in the study to discuss main findings (in-country and cross-country) from the survey results as well as from the interviews conducted during the field research.

 

• On Nov 30 Gabriel Rissola (D-O-T Director) co-organised and moderated the Workshop eInclusion: role of large Third Sector organizations - W2 as part of the programme of activities for the European Ministerial e-Inclusion Conference & Expo 2008 held in Vienna last Nov 30-Dec 2, which was the concluding event of the 2008 e-Inclusion: Be Part of It! campaign
  
• On Dec 3 Gabriel Rissola spoke at the Iberoamerican Forum which was part of the programme of the Online Educa Berlin 2008, the fourteenth International Conference on Technology Supported Learning & Training that took place in Berlin from December 3-5 and is probably the most important e-Learning fair in the world. In the same event, due to Gabriel's collaboration with FAO/UN  since many years, he also participated to the Technology Supported Learning in the United Nations System seminar.
  
• On Dec 17-19 Andrea Díaz (Education & Culture responsible @ D-O-T)  and Gabriel Rissola attended the kick-off meeting of the Learninc project in Istanbul. This project aims at developing a solution of integrated vocational training and business creation in order to help European countries to cope with the common challenge of sustainable urban economic revitalisation mainly supporting micro-clustering processes and new business start up in Historical Centres (partners from Spain, Italy, Greece, Austria, Poland, Romania and Turkey, it will end in Dec 2010).