Digi-Craft project aims to revive and preserve traditional handicrafts in Europe and transfer the traditional skills on to new generations by improving the digital skills of craftspeople. The project will also enhance the collaboration and knowledge exchange between traditional craftspeople and contemporary designers.

In order to analyse and assess the needs of craftspeople by directly engaging with them in a series of surveys and local workshops, the project partners have hosted Local Needs Analysis Workshops and carried out the Online Needs Analysis Survey with more 127 craftspeople from Belgium, Portugal and France in the first-phase of the preparation of Digi-Craft Needs Analysis Report.

The report focuses on addressing and identifying the specific needs of craftspeople regarding technology use, understanding, compatibility and knowledge, and understanding how their adaptation to new technologies and digitalisation can be facilitated.

The Needs Analysis Report will be prepared based on the results of the Online Needs Analysis Survey and Local Needs Analysis Workshops. The Online Survey helped collect demographic and sector-related data from different craftspeople in various sectors while the Local Workshops allowed us to receive a more personal and real reflection directly from the craftspeople themselves. 

The workshops focused on:

How might we support craftspeople in enhancing their digital skills in both the creation process (craft) and general entrepreneurial skills (such as sales, marketing, …)? 

Craftspeople were asked the above question and the workshops were implemented with an interactive series of sessions where the participants were directly involved in both defining and creating solutions to the challenges.

1. Define problems and challenges: Together with the craftspeople, we want to expose the most important pain points, bottlenecks or issues in their profession with regard to digitization. 
2.  Solve problems and make decisions: Together with the craftspeople, we come up with ideas for these exposed problems. We rank the most suitable solutions.

The outcomes of the Online Survey and the Local Workshops will be available on www.digi-craft.org for open access soon!