Meet the Jury of the European Digital Skills Awards 2025!
The European Digital Skills Awards have officially announced the 2025 finalists. Twenty-five projects from around Europe were selected as best practices in the five awards categories, from which five finalists have been selected.
But who had the challenging task of selecting the winners?
The Digital Skills and Jobs Platform team began by pre-evaluating 195 applications based on published criteria: impact, sustainability and scalability, inclusion and accessibility, innovation and originality. They also assessed the clarity of the presentations and the effectiveness of outreach and communication efforts – after all, a great project has to reach its target audience if it’s going to make a difference.
From these applications, 25 finalists were chosen across the five award categories. The jury then faced the difficult task of selecting the winners. Quality was high and there was a great diversity of projects, but the final decisions were made during the concluding meeting.
Discover the finalists of the European Digital Skills Awards 2025!
Meet the Jury
Kamakshi Rajagopal, Independent expert in educational technology
Kamakshi’s academic background is in computational linguistics, and she is currently a researcher and project manager in the field of educational technology. Her favourite projects are the ones where she can interact with practitioners, lifelong learners, and anyone with a problem – to co-create solutions and co-develop relevant technology with them (if it adds value) and help them change their practice to achieve their goals in a better way.
Erlend Andreas Gjære, Secure Practice
Erlend Andreas Gjære is IT security specialist and Co-founder and CEO of Secure Practice. He is a security and people specialist, creating innovative SaaS products in security awareness and preparedness, now on a scaling journey across Europe. Secure Practice provides advice and guidance on awareness, training, change, compliance, risk, technology, and motivation in digital security.
Demetrios Sampson, University of Piraeus
Demetrios is a Professor of Learning Technologies, Director of the MSc Program in Digital Learning, Director of the Research Lab in Digital Systems for Learning and Education at the Department of Digital Systems at the University of Piraeus in Greece. He has been teaching and researching educational technologies and digital education since 1996, and has been a visiting Professor at 8 universities on 4 continents.
Riina Vuorikari, Independent expert in digital competence & education for the future
Riina is a leading expert in digital competence, digital learning, and learning technology. With over 25 years of experience as a researcher and practitioner, she has made significant contributions to the field of digital competence (e.g. conceptual framework, assessment, and measurement) and how digital technologies are used to support learning, teaching, and assessment.
Jonatan Castaño Muñoz, University of Seville
Jonatan is a senior researcher (Ramón y Cajal programme) at the Department of Teaching and Educational Organization in the Faculty of Education of the University of Seville in Spain. His main research topic is the digitalisation of educational systems and its pedagogical and socioeconomic implications. Jonatan holds a PhD in Information and Knowledge Society and a MA degree in Research Methods for Social Sciences.
