Open day marks official start of Masters of the Digital Future debate project

Banka Slovenije today held its Meet Banka Slovenije open day, which marked the official start of the Masters of the Digital Future debate project, which in this school year is being run under the patronage of President Nataša Pirc Musar and Governor Boštjan Vasle. The aim of the debate project is to take a step forward in educating young people about financial matters, while emphasising the importance of incorporating digital advances into the education process.

In recent years Banka Slovenije has been strengthening its efforts to improve the financial literacy of children and young people. We carry out a number of activities under this banner, and every year we augment our programmes with a major project, where the aim is to find an opportunity for inter-institutional collaboration, which we believe to be of key importance to the country. On this occasion we have joined forces with the Office of the President of the Republic of Slovenia on Masters of the Digital Future, a nationwide youth debate project. The aim of this project is to encourage young people to think about the importance of digitalisation to the banking system, and about advanced payment methods and current economic trends, while also reflecting on the impact of digital advances on artificial intelligence and on the rights and obligations of individuals in this connection.

Students and mentors were welcomed at today’s Meet Banka Slovenije open day with speeches by President Nataša Pirc Musar and Governor Boštjan Vasle. In his speech the Governor expressed his great satisfaction that the president has joined in our project, and spoke of the benefits and potential traps of digitalisation, ending his address with the words: “It is true that digitalisation has helped the world to advance at breakneck speed over the last century, but it is still the case that progress and development are not achieved through digitalisation alone. They are achieved above all through dialogue. As you know, the best ideas are always born in conversation, in the exchange of differing views and experiences.”

Later the participants, of whom we hosted more than two hundred, attended numismatic workshops and other work points to learn about some of the basic concepts of financial literacy in a fun way, such as inflation, loans and interest, saving, payment methods, and how to identify counterfeit money, and also found out more about Banka Slovenije’s own work at the Banka Slovenije museum.

The Masters of the Digital Future project will end in May of next year, when we host the grand debate final, with President Nataša Pirc Musar and Governor Boštjan Vasle again playing an active part. The debate project winners will be treated to a trip to Frankfurt, where they will be given a tour of the European Central Bank and the city’s major sights. After the end of the project, all the finalists will meet President Nataša Pirc Musar at the Presidential Palace.