From Digital Skills to Algorithmic Literacy

Understanding the systems that shape knowledge, perception and participation in the age of AI

For more than two decades, digital literacy has been framed as a practical skill. Citizens were taught how to use software, navigate the internet, evaluate sources and protect themselves online. These competencies were essential in a world where technology functioned primarily as a tool — something external, something to be operated. But that world is disappearing.

In the age of artificial intelligence, technology no longer simply mediates access to information. It actively shapes it. Algorithms determine what we see, what we read and increasingly what we believe. The interface has become less visible, while the system behind it has become more powerful.

The result is a subtle but profound shift: we are no longer just users of digital tools — we are participants in environments structured by systems we rarely understand.

“We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
Marshall McLuhan, media theorist

This observation, often cited in the context of mass media, has taken on new meaning in the algorithmic age. Today, it is not only tools that shape us, but the invisible logic embedded within them. The question is no longer whether information is true or false, but how it became visible in the first place.

Housing the Knowledge Economy

Why student housing is becoming critical infrastructure for Europe’s innovation regions

Across Europe’s leading technology regions, housing is increasingly emerging as a structural constraint on economic growth. As innovation clusters expand and universities attract international talent, the availability of affordable housing is becoming a decisive factor in the sustainability of regional knowledge ecosystems.

In the traditional policy debate, housing has largely been framed as a social or urban planning issue — an important aspect of city development, but rarely considered part of the economic infrastructure that enables innovation and growth. That perception is now beginning to change. In knowledge-driven economies, the physical availability of housing increasingly determines whether talent can enter and remain within an ecosystem.

Universities, research institutions and technology companies rely on the continuous inflow of students, researchers and skilled professionals. Yet without sufficient housing capacity, that inflow can quickly slow down. Cities that succeed in attracting global talent may simultaneously find themselves constrained by the inability of their urban infrastructure to accommodate it.

The Economic Frontline: Rebuilding Ukraine’s Critical Infrastructure

How roads, power grids and digital networks are being rebuilt during war — and why Europe is closely watching

The war in Ukraine has destroyed cities, displaced millions and redrawn the geopolitical landscape of Europe. Yet beyond the battlefield, another struggle is unfolding — one fought with power cables, railway lines and digital networks rather than artillery. Ukraine’s infrastructure has become both a target and a strategic instrument in the country’s survival.

What makes the situation unprecedented is that reconstruction is not waiting for peace. Repairs to power grids, transport corridors and communications networks are being carried out while the war continues. For policymakers and investors across Europe, the rebuilding of Ukraine has already begun to resemble the largest infrastructure project of the twenty-first century.

Recent assessments by the World Bank, the European Commission and the United Nations estimate that the cost of recovery and reconstruction could reach nearly $588 billion over the next decade. The scale is staggering: almost three times the country’s projected annual economic output. Direct physical damage to infrastructure alone is already estimated to exceed $150 billion, a figure that continues to rise as the war grinds on.

“The needs for recovery and reconstruction in Ukraine are enormous and the costs continue to grow. Damage to infrastructure is not only an economic loss, but a direct attack on the lifeline of the civilian population.”

Anna Bjerde
Managing Director of Operations, World Bank