Russia no longer hides that it is in a cyberwar with Poland. They attack and do it with premeditation – said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digitization Krzysztof Gawkowski. On Friday, he opened the Digital Skills Summit conference in Gliwice.
The head of the Ministry of Digitization announced that in Poland in 2024, twice as many cybersecurity incidents were detected than in 2023 and three times as many as in 2022.
“Russia no longer hides that it is in cyberwar with Poland”
– A large part of them is clearly aimed at Poland Russia. Russia no longer hides that it is in a cyberwar with Poland. They attack and do it with premeditation. They know where our soft underbellies are – said Krzysztof Gawkowski.
He pointed out that the problem is, among others, cybersecurity Polish local governments. Therefore, the ministry, in cooperation with the state research institute NASK, launched the “Cybersecure local government” program. Thanks to support from European Union funds, local governments can receive up to PLN 850,000. PLN support for improving digital security.
The Deputy Prime Minister emphasized that digital law is needed in the European Union, but it cannot lead to overregulation of this area.
“The next five years will be marked by an increase in digital competences”
The conference was also attended by an MEP and chairman of the Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee in the European Parliament Borys Budka. He assessed that digitalization will be key to a just transformation in the EU.
– We know perfectly well that The next five years will be marked by the growth of digital competences. Not only when it comes to personal digital competences (…), but also when it comes to digital competences in industry. It is very important that digitalization is used to build the competitiveness of the European economy, said Borys Budka.
According to the “Poland's Digitalization Strategy”, in 2035, 85% of people should have digital competences at the basic level. citizens, and at the advanced level 50 percent citizens. This means a need to more than double the results of the Digital Economy and Society Index from 2022, which examines the digital efficiency of individual EU countries.
“Education is getting ready for this leap”
During the discussion on strategic challenges regarding the development of digital competences Deputy Minister of Education Katarzyna Lubnauer said that “education is getting ready for this leap.”
She pointed out that in Poland, programming was introduced very quickly in schools, but this was not followed by “mass teacher training”. In her opinion, the challenge for them is the transition from traditional education to education related to the digital revolution.
– There are increasing doubts about what the digital competences of young students should be, what they should actually learn – programming or the use of digital tools to a greater extent? (…) In a moment, artificial intelligence may replace us in programming, but other digital competences are needed, said Katarzyna Lubnauer.
She added that, among other things, issues related to digital hygiene and threats in social media will appear during health education lessons. The subject is to be introduced from the 2025/2026 school year.
Digital Skills Summit conference
The Digital Skills Summit conference was organized by the Ministry of Digitization in cooperation with the state research institute NASK and the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice. The main goal is to support digital transformation and promote cooperation to improve society's digital competences.
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