Diia.Digital State is the largest-scale digital project in Ukraine today, which we are carrying out jointly with the Ministry of Digital Transformation. Its goal is to make it easy and transparent for individuals and business to communicate with their government.

To transform Ukraine into a digital state, many services still need to be digitized, the legal framework needs to be updated, the work of state registries needs to be streamlined, and technological capabilities and data protection need to be ensured. These changes will affect not only administrative services but also such sectors as healthcare, business, education, transport, the court system, issues related to democracy, and so on.

This initiative has led to the launch of the Diia government services portal. Diia, meaning “action”, is the access point to all public services that the government provides to individuals and businesses. Everything on this site is clear, quick and easy-to-understand. The services have been completely streamlined, the language is simple, and the interface is based on UX/UI design. MinDigit plans for 100% of government services to be accessible online by 2024. As of May 2020, the Diia system has already been visited by over 2.3 million users.

The concept of the digital state was preceded by the development of Diia as a national brand, which was also done with the support of the EGAP Program. The Diia brand stands for “the State and I” and is based on the contemporary idea that interactions between individuals and their government should be easy, understandable and quick. They should not waste time or energy, nor should they involve unnecessary dealings with bureaucrats, which is a great way to cut out corruption.

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In support of the Digital Transformation Ministry’s goal of helping 6 million Ukrainians develop good digital competence by 2023, we jointly carried out the first-ever study of digital literacy among Ukrainians.

Presented at the end of 2019, the results shows that 53% of Ukrainians already have some digital competence, but below the basic level. Another 37.9% have very low competence, while 15.1% have no digital skills at all.

Younger Ukrainians, age 10-17, showed the highest levels of competence, with 61.6% registering as “higher than average”.

As the basis for determining the level of digital competence, we used the methodology of the European Commission, DigComp 2.0. Digital competence covers four parameters: information and communication skills — which are the most developed among Ukrainians, both at over 70%, according to the survey —, the ability to solve problems online, and the search for information in the Internet.

Altogether, the study involved:

• four focus groups in urban and rural population centers;
• a quantitative survey of the population of Ukraine through a face-to-face interview at the respondent’s residence, involving 1,800 respondents age 18-78;
• a public opinion poll among people with hearing disabilities using a survey involving 219 respondents age 18−59;
• a survey among young Ukrainians using questionnaires at their schools, involving 859 respondents age 10–17;
• a survey of residents in the Occupied Regions of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts (ORDiLO), involving 400 respondents age 18−70.

All the results of this research can be found here

The results were used as the basis for the National Online Digital Literacy Platform called Diia.Digital Education, presented on January 21, 2020.

Together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, we participated in developing and launching the National Online Digital Literacy Platform called Diia.Digital Education. The purpose of this project is to teach digital competence to at least six million Ukrainians by 2023.

Our key target groups are:

• older individuals who have no digital competence, which is why the first basic courses were developed for this group, along with a guest course in mobile literacy;
• parents and kids, with a focus on online safety;
• adults with basic digital competence that, once expanded through specialized and in-depth courses, will allow them to remain competitive on the labor market or to master new professions;
• young people, both pupils and students, and young professionals, for whom courses in new digital careers are provided.

An innovative form of educational “serials” has been chosen for the learning process: instead of lessons, series, and instead of grades, seasons. The project has invited both expert instructors and Ukrainian celebrities whom people are used to seeing on TV and who will entertain, keep the dialog moving, tell jokes and improvise.

On the Diia.Digital Education platform, anyone who is interested can find, among others, such educational serials as:

• Basic digital skills (first, second and third season)
• “Online safety for kids”, a serial for parents
• Digital skills for teachers
• Digital literacy for government employees 1.0 based on Google tools
• Modern resumes and finding a job online
• E-democracy stars
• Training for trainers
• Artificial Intelligence
• Digital technologies for people with disabilities
• Artificial intelligence for pupils

All educational serials are free of charge. New specialized and niche courses for business professionals, lifestyle courses, and courses in new digital careers will be available through the online platform nearly every month. At the end of every course, participants can take a final test and get a certificate confirming that they have passed successfully.

As of 1 January 2021, the Diia.Digital Education platform has seen 400,000 users take its courses.