TechSov4Futures: Digital Sovereignty for SMEs

In Europe, SMEs make up the majority of the entrepreneurial fabric, but their organizations often remain outside the tables where the rules of the digital transition are written. This is where TechSov4Futures was born, the European project that started today in Rome with the aim of strengthening the role of employers' organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises in the management of technological change, putting digital sovereignty at the center and the ability of industries and workers to direct it according to European values. The project, co-financed by the European Union as part of the SOCPL programme, puts in place concrete tools, training courses and spaces for discussion to make digitalisation more inclusive, transparent and socially negotiated. Leading the initiative is Confimi Industria, leader of a partnership that brings together some of the main players in social dialogue and entrepreneurial representation in Europe: from the affiliates Confimi Industria Digitale and Confimi Industria Bergamo, to Confartigianato Imprese Bergamo, European Digital Sme Alliance and Connect Europe, up to Fondazione and AssociazioneAdapt, Ceoe Castilla y León and the Chambers of Commerce of Budapest and Tirana. Also at the table are the Regional Council of Puglia, Confimi Industria Puglia and UNI Europa, which brings the European trade union perspective for a balanced and inclusive approach. "Digital sovereignty is not just a technological issue: it concerns the ability of European companies, SMEs first and foremost, to direct the transformation according to their own values, without passively undergoing it. TechSov4Futures was created to give employers' organizations the tools and negotiating weight to do so, starting from social dialogue", explained Sergio Ventricelli, vice-president of Confimi Industria and president of Confimi Puglia. Over the next three years the project will develop through applied research, national workshops and a multilingual community of practice, up to a transnational workshop that will bring the results directly to European Union policy makers in Brussels. A step towards a digitalization model that is not only technological, but also social and participatory, where companies and representatives contribute to writing the rules that will define the future of work.