Good practice

Digitaler Engel

Germany · Berlin · See the Germany profile

German mobile digital coaching programme deploying trained volunteers to rural towns (under 50,000 population) to help seniors use digital tools safely; 800+ events, approx. 25,000 seniors reached, 1,500+ multipliers trained; European Digital Skills Award 2025 winner.

800+

Events held

~25,000

Seniors reached

1,500+

Multipliers trained

Details

Maturity: Scaling
Promoter: Deutschland sicher im Netz e.V. (DsiN)
Period: 2019–present
Keywords: older adults, rural communities, cybersecurity, digital skills, mobile outreach

Context

Digitaler Engel is a German mobile digital-coaching programme that sends trained volunteers to small rural towns to help seniors use digital tools safely.

Results

The programme has held 800+ events reaching about 25,000 seniors and trained 1,500+ multipliers, winning the European Digital Skills Award 2025.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-06-21
Deutschland sicher im Netz e.V. (DsiN) — accessed 2026-06-21
DsiN — Digitaler Engel programme — accessed 2026-06-21
BMBFSFJ — European Digital Skills Award 2025 announcement — accessed 2026-06-21
EU Digital Skills & Jobs Platform good-practice entry — accessed 2026-06-21

Attachments

Source image

Quality score: 92/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported

Top 6% in this catalogue (573 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Innovation level3/5

Mobile consulting units targeting specifically rural communities under 50,000 population, combined with a cybersecurity-plus-digital-inclusion approach and a structured multiplier cascade model, is a genuinely novel configuration.

Sustainability (ongoing)1/1

Continuously funded by BMBFSFJ since 2019 and actively expanding to new federal states (Thüringen, 2025), demonstrating institutional commitment and scaling.

Evaluation evidence1/1

European Digital Skills Award 2025 (Cybersecurity Skills category) by an independent EU Commission expert panel validates effectiveness; DsiN's own reporting documents 800+ deployments and 25,000 seniors reached.

Demonstrated reach1/1

Approximately 25,000 seniors directly reached through 800+ events, with 1,500+ trained multipliers extending reach into rural communities not normally served by fixed support services.

Documented learning1/1

Structured multiplier training model is explicitly designed and documented for replication; expansion into new federal states confirms the methodology is transferable within Germany and beyond.

Cite this

Evidoria. Digitaler Engel. Persistent ID: 35180d45-ab57-450a-a2ac-44ab797fd4f0.

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