Increasingly, public services, education, health, banking and employment are moving to online environments. With AI now embedded in many services, digital inclusion means being able to use devices as well as interact critically, safely and effectively with the tools supported by AI.
HelloAI is a 36-month project coordinated by NGO, Aproximar in Portugal. It brings together 17 organisations from Portugal, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia, Italy, Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus and Romania. The project endeavours to improve migrants’ digital skills and their understanding of artificial intelligence (AI), while recognising that migrants can face challenges linked to language, literacy, connectivity and unfamiliar digital systems.
RSM leading the learning framework
Dr Dimitrios Vlachopoulos of RSM leads the project’s Work Package 2, which will establish a HelloAI Competency Framework that is aligned with the European Digital Competence Framework (DigComp) 2.2 and is designed to accommodate DigComp 3.0. The RSM team will also develop six personalised pathways for diverse levels of digital readiness and contribute to the platform’s multilingual environment and tools, based on a Large Language Model (LLM) for trainers. This will help to ensure an educational and evidence-based foundation.
Multilingual, personalised and accessible learning
At the core of HelloAI is a multilingual learning environment, designed around migrants’ needs. Learners begin with a digital readiness assessment that is powered by AI. This informs personalised learning pathways that are aligned with DigComp.
A multilingual AI tutor will support learning in 14 languages, including Arabic, Farsi, Somali, Urdu and Ukrainian, by using mobile-first, low-bandwidth, and accessible design features together with human trainer oversight.
Co-designed pilots towards European scale
Migrants and frontline professionals will co-design, test and refine the platform. The HelloAI project aims to train 1,000 migrants in the pilot programmes and attract a minimum of 1,500 users, with at least 40% of those users coming from vulnerable groups. The project will also train 150 professionals, deliver 36 Train-the-Trainer sessions, build a European Trainer Community of Practice and secure 15 institutional commitments. To support a wider European adoption, HelloAI will also produce three policy briefs and two policy roundtables.
Learning through real-life digital tasks
With RSM leading the Open-Source AI Tools Gallery, the project will identify and validate 50 open-source AI tools and translate those into practical case studies and clear instructions for migrant learners in the HelloAI project. Learners can then practise their digital competences through everyday situations such as navigating online public services, completing forms, applying for jobs, recognising phishing, using digital ID and interacting safely with generative AI.
