European Digital Skills Award 2026

Sistema THEAD wins the 2026 European Digital Skills Award for Scratch Tactile, the Catalan project that makes coding accessible to all children.

The European Commission has recognized Scratch Tactile as the winner of the 2026 European Digital Skills Award in the “Inclusion in the Digital World” category, in recognition of its outstanding contribution to advancing inclusive digital education.

On 30 June, Sistema THEAD was awarded the 2026 European Digital Skills Award in the “Inclusion in the Digital World” category for its Scratch Tactile project. The award was presented during the official ceremony held in Brussels as part of the Digital Skills EU Days.

This European recognition highlights our work as a Catalan cooperative specializing in inclusive educational innovation and recognizes Scratch Tactile as an initiative that helps make digital skills and computational thinking accessible to all children, especially those with visual or motor disabilities and other specific educational support needs.

The awards are organized by the European Commission’s Digital Skills and Jobs Platform and annually recognize Europe’s most innovative initiatives that help develop citizens’ digital skills and build a more inclusive digital society. This year, the awards received 220 applications from across Europe, with only 25 projects selected as finalists, five in each award category.

The European Digital Skills Awards jury recognized Scratch Tactile as an initiative that removes barriers to digital skills from an early age through a hybrid approach that combines hands-on learning materials with accessible technology.

The project contributes to the objectives of the European Digital Decade 2030, which aims to ensure that the digital transformation benefits everyone and leaves no one behind.  

This recognition positions Sistema THEAD among Europe’s leading initiatives in the field of digital skills, alongside international projects focused on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, vocational education and training, and workforce inclusion.  

This award is a recognition of everyone who has made Scratch Tactile possible: schools, teachers, families, researchers, partner organizations, and above all, the children who remind us every day that technology only has real value when it is accessible and inclusive for everyone.

At Sistema THEAD, we believe that digital skills should not be a privilege, but a right. This recognition from the European Commission encourages us to continue working to ensure that no child is excluded from learning coding, computational thinking, innovation, and full participation in the digital society.