On 30 August in Namur, over 100 Digital Wallonia Champions, the official representatives of the Digital Wallonia scheme attended the first summer university. The aim was to discuss and contribute to the design of V2 of Digital Wallonia, Wallonia’s digital strategy which will be officially presented by the Walloon Government on 6 December at SHAKE Digital Wallonia.

There are currently 148 Digital Wallonia Champions. They are divided into 5 strategic themes and have been selected based on unsolicited applications, recommendations from other champions or identified directly by the Digital Agency (AdN). They have three missions, to promote digital, to circulate information about the actions of Digital Wallonia and to propose ideas for Wallonia's digital development. 

It was for this purpose that the summer university was set up. The Digital Wallonia Champions have had the opportunity to fulfil their responsibilities by contributing directly to the monitoring and development of the digital strategy, identifying strong measures for 2019 and proposing a vision and structuring framework for the next five years.        

This work took place in two steps; the first was preparatory work carried out prior to the university. The champions were asked to complete forms that were used to evaluate the priority level of the strategic objectives and development priorities of the Digital Wallonia strategy and make suggestions for new directions.

For the second step, the Digital Champions took part in themed workshops and during these, were able to find out about the proposals and ideas from the themed forms, select the most relevant, work in groups on the sub-themes, assign the proposals and ideas likely to allow the realisation of these ideas and select the final choices.

In conclusion, several key elements emerged as a result of this work in two parts, including the need for strong digital governance; the ambition for a digital Wallonia identity, in Belgium and abroad; the absolute need for digital skills through schools and training courses and even the choice of ambitious major projects, with clear priorities and a logic of working in ecosystems.

This commitment and this momentum have, once again, extended the open and collaborative spirit of Digital Wallonia. It is not without reason that the Digital Minister concluded the summer university by reasserting his commitment and that of the Government to support and further increase the dynamic of Digital Wallonia.