For the 7^th year Get Online Week in Latvia was organized  by LIKTA in Cooperation with the Ministry of Regional Development and Environmental Protection. 103 municipalities were involved as regional coordinators . In overall  more than 150 partners – state organizations, universities, IT companies, NGO s have participated in GOW 2016 organization in Latvia.  During GOW 2016  788 events were organized all across Latvia with total number of  21952 participants

GOW 2016 launch – High level opening event

GOW 2016 in Latvia campaign started with a high level Policy opening event on 7th of March. The event was moderated by Digital Champion of Latvia Mr. Reinis Zitmanis.  2 Ministers, 1 state secretary as well as ICT sector industry leaders participated in event, representing the National E-skills Coalition of Latvia. Event was broadcasted online across Latvia with more than 2100 connections. Event took place at 98m height at the Latvia TV tower with wide media presence. Participants discussed the importance of digital skills for various aspects of business and life – in education, entrepreneurship, employability and active citizenship.

Digital security on the focus of GOW 2016 !

Digital security was one of the top themes for GOW 2016 in Latvia and on 7th of March special discussion and online broadcast was organized to reflect information about ICT security. Online discussion with Digital security experts from Ministry of Defense of Latvia, CERT.LV, Bank of Latvia, Digital Security Alianse and LIKTA members had more than 2000 followers via Online broadcast.

Different other digital  security related activities were organized by  ICT companies, banks, schools, libraries and CERT.LV across Latvia.

 ICT career days and Coding activities

As every year, Latvia has been active to promote ICT careers and coding for young people. ICT career days were organized both by schools visiting companies, but also by ICT company leaders and young specialists visiting their former schools to meet students and present exiting experience of their ICT careers.

On 9^th of March in frame of GOW 16 final event of the project “Coding for my future” was organized.  This was a competition for young students aged 12-19  who learned development of Windows applications. During the event winners of the competition “Coding for my future” were announced. LIKTA president Signe Balina, Head of Microsoft Latvia Ēriks Eglītis, Head of National Centre for Education of the Republic of Latvia Guntars Catlaks and Digital Champion of Latvia Reinis Zitmanis also participated in the event.

Local events and other activities

The offline activities were organized all over the country. There were 788  events across the country in public libraries, youth job centres, schools, ICT companies  and other institutions.

During the Get Online Week 2016 over 3500 people have registered and completed ICT skills diagnostic tests on online platforms:

Young people were very active in  Skillage test, Fit4Jobs Test and Yourock.Jobs platform.

Almost 2000 teachers and students filled the self-assessment tool  “Online4EDU  barometer “ checking their skills to use online collaboration tools and cloud services

The campaign reached high media coverage in national and regional media of Latvia.