Milan, October 29 (askanews) – Over 150 students and professionals trained, more than 360 free courses, and over 530 training credits awarded. These numbers alone demonstrate the success of Edvance, the project coordinated by the Polytechnic University of Milan to simplify advanced digital training and make it available to everyone: not just students and professionals, but also ordinary citizens.
“This platform was created by a network of 16 universities and four academies, who worked together for two years with PNRR funds to make high-profile content on advanced digital skills available to all citizens (but also, of course, to students and teachers, both at schools and universities),” Susanna Sancassani, Project Manager of the Edvance Network and Managing Director of METID at the Polytechnic University of Milan, explained to askanews.
Digital and artificial intelligence are not useful in themselves, but because they intersect with other areas of human knowledge, such as medicine, economics, and the humanities, to add value to cognitive processes. Therefore, the portal offers courses dedicated to all these topics, accessible to anyone free of charge." Having concluded the phase funded by the PNRR, Edvance is not stopping: with Edvance 2.0, the network of 16 universities and institutions of higher education in the arts and music aims to consolidate the experience gained by expanding the involvement of schools, local authorities, and third sector organizations.
"From the very beginning, there was an intention to reach beyond students to support them in continuing education: professional lives are now getting longer, and professional development is essential," says Federico Caniato, Professor of Management and Business Organization and Delegate for Continuing Education at the Polytechnic University of Milan. "Therefore, we want to offer professionals an opportunity to update themselves on cutting-edge topics—artificial intelligence today, and who knows tomorrow. And, rightly, we have this ambition to expand into society. We thought Edvance could be what we called a citizenship infrastructure, that is, an infrastructure truly aimed at everyone, from schools to citizens to public administrations, to provide a free, accessible, and flexible opportunity for updates on all cutting-edge, current issues that now concern everyone, not just university students." The challenge is not only to spread digital skills, but above all to encourage the use of artificial intelligence in a conscious, aware, and critical manner, recognizing its opportunities and risks. "We're exploring the topic of artificial intelligence not just as a technology, but in its wide-ranging applications, from medicine to law, from the arts to business management. So, it's a bit like how to use these tools critically and wisely," Caniato emphasizes. "We're also launching an idea we've called 'True or Viral' to try to help citizens orient themselves, on the one hand, to the potential but also the risks of artificial intelligence, and to its incorrect or perhaps even uninformed use. So, this is also, in a way, our 'social' mission."
Askanews