From March 9 to 25, Brainster is proud to serve as a National Coordinator for All Digital Weeks 2026, a pan-European digital skills awareness campaign co-funded by the European Commission, uniting organizations from more than 20 countries across Europe under this year’s theme: “Digital Well-being for a Competitive Europe.” In
Macedonia, Brainster coordinates the campaign alongside fellow National Coordinator Poraka Nova.
Now in its 16th edition, All Digital Weeks is one of Europe’s most significant campaigns dedicated to digital inclusion, skills, and empowerment. Each year, it brings together governments, universities, NGOs, businesses, and community organizations around a shared mission: ensuring that every citizen regardless of age, background, or profession has access to the digital knowledge and tools needed to participate fully in
today’s economy and society. The campaign is a reminder that digital transformation is not just a technological shift. It is a human one. And closing the skills gap is a collective responsibility.
As National Coordinators, Brainster and Poraka Nova will center the campaign on two priorities. Work that is already happening, every day, across our programs and communities.
Digital skills for employment, entrepreneurship and innovation.
The demand for practical, market-relevant digital and AI competencies is growing faster than traditional education systems can keep pace. For Brainster, responding to this demand has been the core mission since 2015 and Brainster Next College is where that response takes its most concrete form. As North Macedonia’s first accredited practical IT college and a pioneer of dual education at the higher education level, Brainster Next
was built on a simple premise: skills must connect directly to the real world, or they don’t count. Around 80% of courses involve co-teaching with industry experts from national and international ICT companies. Students work on real projects for real clients, developing for example a digital booking platform for the National Opera and Ballet, building a machine-learning predictive model for Cineplexx, designing digital identities for cultural institutions, and delivering rebranding concepts for festivals and theatres. They participate in hackathons co-organized with Sparkasse Bank, Sava Insurance, the Embassy of the Netherlands, Laika, Prilep Brewery, and many other companies and institutions. Between 2022 and 2025, students completed 118 internships across 59
partner companies, and the first graduating cohort of the Software Engineering and Innovation programme achieved a 100% employment rate.
Kire Jordanov, a graduate of the programme, puts it plainly: “At Brainster Next we don’t just study theory. We constantly work on real projects that prepare us for what comes after college. This education directly prepares me for a career, entrepreneurship, and innovation in the digital era.”
This commitment to employment-ready, innovation-driven education extends well beyond the college. Through AIatWork, Brainster’s live AI training platform professionals and companies across the region learn directly from practitioners at Google, Microsoft, Tesla, OpenAI, and IBM, building skills that are relevant today, not six months ago. And through High School Millionaire, North Macedonia’s largest entrepreneurship competition for high school students, Brainster is building entrepreneurial mindset early giving young people mentorship, industry guidance, and the chance to turn their ideas into real businesses, backed by a prize of one million Macedonian denars.
Digital citizenship, rights, and well-being online.
Knowing how to use technology is only half the equation. Knowing how to navigate it safely, critically, and responsibly is a different and equally important skill set. Understanding your rights online, recognizing misinformation, and engaging with digital tools in a way that supports rather than undermines your well-being are competencies that deserve as much attention as any technical subject. And they need to be built early.
This is precisely the thinking behind AIatSchool developed by Brainster Next in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science of North Macedonia. The programme introduces AI literacy and modern digital pedagogy into schools across the country, training teachers on how to use AI responsibly and effectively. The goal is not
just skill-building it is long-term systemic change, embedding critical digital thinking into the education system from the ground up.
Brainster also organizes ultiMATH, the largest high-school mathematics competition in Europe bringing together thousands of students to challenge their skills and inspire the next generation of STEM talent. Across all these programs and initiatives, the thread is the same: digital education is not a one-time intervention. It is a continuous, lifelong practice and one that needs to start as early as possible.
Join Us in Ohrid, March 19
As part of the national campaign activities, Poraka Nova and Brainster will host “Digital Learning for Social Good”, a public event on March 19, 2026, starting at 12:00, at the Accelerator premises of the University for Information Science and Technology “St. Paul the Apostle” in Ohrid. The event brings together academia, civil society, and industry for a keynote address on digital skills and Europe’s competitiveness, spotlight talks from Brainster, oraka Nova, and Angor AG, and a panel discussion on digital innovation and youth engagement closing with open Q&A and networking session. This is an open invitation to students, educators, professionals, entrepreneurs, and anyone who believes that digital skills are not a privilege, but a right. Come be part of the conversation. Come help shape what digital education looks like in Macedonia.
For more information and to follow campaign activities, find Brainster and Poraka Nova on LinkedIn, or explore events across Europe at all-digital.org.
Follow the campaign: AllDigitalEU
