Small Screens, Big Confidence: The Smart Village Network's First Digital Skills Session in Eglinton

When nine retirees settled into the Eglinton Community Centre for a three-hour digital skills workshop, none of them arrived expecting a lecture. What they got instead was something the Smart Village Network Project (SVNP) is built to deliver: practical, tailored help that meets people exactly where they are with the devices they already own.

This was the first training session delivered under ERNACT and SVNP by AI Fusion, a Donegal-based AI and digital skills training provider — and it's a small but telling example of what "digital transformation" actually looks like on the ground.

Meeting people where they are

The room was a genuine mix: some attendees on iPhones, others on Android phones and tablets. Rather than run a generic slideshow, the session was tailored on the spot to each operating system, walking people through the settings and screens actually in front of them.

The questions were the ones that matter in daily life, not in a manual:

Nothing here is flashy. But for someone who's spent years quietly struggling to read a text message or unsure whether an email is genuine, it's the difference between a device sitting in a drawer and one that's actually useful.

Confidence, not just content

What stood out most from the session wasn't the material — it was the attitude in the room. Attendees came in willing to have a go, ready to ask questions without embarrassment, and left with something to hold onto afterwards: a take-home booklet built around screenshots and step-by-step instructions from their own devices, so the learning doesn't evaporate the moment they walk out the door.

That's the quiet, unglamorous work of closing the digital divide — not a single dramatic intervention, but repeated, patient, device-specific support that respects people's time and their existing confidence.

Why this matters for SVNP's goal

The Smart Village Network Project — a €4.9 million cross-border initiative supported by PEACEPLUS and led by Derry City and Strabane District Council, alongside partners including ERNACT, Donegal County Council, Ulster University and North West Regional College — exists to accelerate digital and green transformation across the North West City Region, with a particular focus on bridging the rural-urban divide and improving access to digital services for communities who might otherwise be left behind.

Sessions like Eglinton are where that mission gets tested in the real world. Nine people, one afternoon, and a stack of very ordinary, very real questions about text size and email safety — multiplied across every hub in the network — is exactly how "inclusive economic growth" and "digital transformation" stop being phrases in a funding document and start being something people actually experience.

Looking ahead

This was AI Fusion's first delivery under the ERNACT and SVNP partnership, and it won't be the last. If the Eglinton session is anything to go by, the appetite is there — people just need training that's built around them, not around the technology.