Special bus spreads the message of digitalization in Örebro

Taking a page out of the concept of mobile libraries

Digitalization, and more specifically its possibilities to improve daily lives, remains something of a mysterious idea to many in society, despite the widespread use of smartphones. For that reason, the Swedish municipality of Örebro has decided to bring it closer to the local residents with the help of a bus, which will serve as a mobile digital workshop for anyone who is curious to discover, explore and experiment with the boundaries of digitalization.

The bus will travel around the municipality and visit everything every locality. Residents can try different digital tools here and learn more together with experienced supervisors.

Expanding network of digital workshops in the municipality

This is not the first foray on part of local experts and administration to make digitalization and its tools more comprehensible to the people of Örebro.

Four years ago, the Municipality invested in a meeting place for digitized lifelong learning. Called Trainstation, both adults and children can gather in it to practice digital creativity. Evaluation has shown that the meeting place promotes equality, as it reaches, for example, as many girls and women as boys and men, different districts and age groups. It also leads to more people at work. In 2021 alone, more than 50 young people from the Vivalla district have received income and employment in the wake of the innovative meeting place.

Several of the municipality’s administrations are involved in the project. Then there is also the Discover By Örebro project, where the municipality’s employees in various activities are inspired by and trained in various digital tools.

The bus, as a mobile digital meeting place, is a collaboration between Trainstation, Discover by Örebro and Mötesplats Väst.

“With the bus and the mobile digital workshop, we can now spread this work to even more Örebro residents. We know that this way of working evokes new dreams and concrete opportunities, and we want as many people as possible to have the chance to discover the possibilities of digitalisation. Without knowledge about digitalisation, there is a risk that we end up outside society, so this is important for both our own everyday lives, but also an issue for the development of Örebro and a democracy issue,” explained John Johansson, the mayor of the municipality.

The mobile digital workshop also borrows from the approach that had already been employed for several years by the mobile bus libraries, which were especially useful during the pandemic lockdowns.