Since operations began in 2020, the Digital Transformation Centre (DTC) Initiative – a partnership between the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Cisco to strengthen and bridge the gap of people’s digital skills – has had significant impact around the world; to date, 500,000 people from underserved communities have been trained in digital literacy and basic digital skills.

The DTCs are a global network of 14 national institutions that deliver national digital skills training programmes at basic and intermediate levels, primarily through face-to-face courses. Beneficiaries include, among others, marginalized groups, such as people with disabilities, inmates in a rehabilitation center, and people living in remote and underserved communities. DTCs also conduct train-the-trainers sessions.

At the Global DTC Workshop 2025, held from 10 to 12 June in Santo Domingo, DTC focal points shared the importance of sharing best practices and lessons learnt.

“The DTC initiative brings together inclusivity and digital skills. By joining the initiative, we have taken an active role in helping people to join the courses and programs and give the basic skills needed back to the Indonesian people. At the workshop, we learned how the other countries successfully deliver training, and hope that other countries can also learn from our best practices,” said Hamdani Pratmam, ICT Training and Development Center, the DTC in Indonesia.

Through networking opportunities and small group discussions, along with deep-dive consultation sessions, participants identified methodologies to help them reach more learners.

“The face-to-face and networking activities from this year’s Global DTC Workshop is going to strengthen the DTC in Ghana to reach more participants, especially getting qualified trainers for our various workshops. The DTC network is made up of different countries, but we unite in our uniqueness to provide digital skills for persons living in underserved and unserved areas. For instance, learning from the experience of the DTC in Indonesia, we’re going to go back to our home country to recruit qualified university graduates as part of their internship program to assist us to train. I feel this is a sustainable measure. I believe adopting cost-efficient solutions such as this is critical for scaling Ghana’s digital skills provision efforts and covering more underserved communities,” said Abena Acheampomaa Nyamesem, Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications, the DTC in Ghana.

Participants reflected on how to implement best practices and success stories shared during the workshop to amplify their impact on the ground.

“The feedback from our learners is that the training positively impacts their lives. They learn how to use a computer and take information technology training, and go on to do certifications, after which they can get a job. But they would like to see more courses being offered. During the event, we discussed how we can increase and widen the number of courses. With this new knowledge, we’ll be able to offer more training courses to a broader spectrum of learners and a wider audience can be impacted through this initiative,” said Ehsen Puri, Virtual University of Pakistan, the DTC in Pakistan.

Participants agreed that events like this showcase the strength of diversity – which will help them reach the next 500,000 learners.

“These types of events contribute to new practices that can be applied in different communities, strengthening the work of DTCs in countries, regions, and local centres,” said Nelson Nunez, Centros Tecnológicos Comunitarios , the DTC in the Dominican Republic. “They demonstrate that there are different ways to instil competencies and skills in communities that are adapted to the culture of each country, as well as ways to create and organize collaborative agreements, but which can also be replicated in culturally different countries.”

And participants agreed that the outcomes of the workshop will be more impactful than ever.

Attending the Global DTC Workshop 2025 was a truly impactful experience for me and will profoundly influence my teaching methodologies. My expectation is that the insights gained from this three-day workshop will further increase the program’s acceptability and contribute to making the delivery process more streamlined and impactful for our students across Sierra Leone,” said Mohamed Mustapha Dumbuya, Bridge the Digital Divide Sierra Leone, the DTC in Sierra Leone.

The DTC initiative is co-financed by ITU and the Government of Norway.

This is an ITU Development #DigitalImpactUnlocked story

About the Digital Transformation Centres (DTC) Initiative

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