The YDSI project aims at empowering young people (especially students in social sciences and volunteers) in digital social innovation thinking and practices at a European level professionalizing them in a lifelong learning European perspective. The general objective of the YDSI project is the definition of a basic educational framework for youth online social innovation education at a European level integrating the expertise of partners engaged in different topical social educational practices such as peer learning, participatory learning, social learning, and collaborative learning. The specific objectives are: • to exchange best practices between organizations active in social innovation focusing on methodologies, conditions and best-practices of social innovation thinking • to increase competencies of young people on digital social innovation providing them with advice and guidance on how to design and developing social innovation ideas and proposals exploiting EU funding and opportunities available on the Web • to create a comprehensive list of good practices on the topics of digital social innovation and social entrepreneurship • to create a network of organizations active in digital social innovation and promoting their collaboration with social enterprises Addressed needs The YDSI project addresses the following needs: • professionalization of young people in a topical sector such as digital social innovation thinking and social entrepreneurship • their empowerment in the use of online educational processes Addressed target group The project’s target group are students, and young people engaged in social volunteer activities or employed in social services institutions/organizations. Transnational motivation The YDSI Strategic Partnership is motivated by the following main factors: - social education, social services, and social innovation go beyond national borders - social digital innovation and professional use of the new technologies are European goals that need a transnational approach - our project wants to contribute to achieving a European objective: improving the active involvement of young people in the development of high-quality non-formal and informal educational programs at a European level - participation to this European project will provide partners with the opportunity for sharing investigations conducted separately as well as for confronting ideas, practices, and methods of digital social innovation; thanks to this project, they will create a network and increase their capacity to operate at a transnational level.