Across Europe, entrepreneurs, engineers, doctors and social workers are testing new ways to answer these questions.
Digital technology is now part of daily life. People use it to find a job, access their rights or see a doctor. But not everyone has the same access. In France, about one person in two faces at least one barrier to using digital tools fully, according to Emmaüs Connect. Across the European Union, almost 40% of citizens still lack basic digital skills, according to Eurostat figures cited by ReDI School.
Artificial intelligence makes this question more urgent. It can speed up research and help people get support faster. It can also reproduce bias and leave people behind.
Technology is neither good nor bad on its own. Its impact depends on who designs it and who can use it.
Here are twelve approaches showing how technology can serve people and society.
1. Make digital access a right for everyone
Victor Baysang-Michelin is in charge of advocacy at Emmaüs Connect in France. The organisation fights digital exclusion, especially among people in precarious situations.
According to Baysang-Michelin, people face three main barriers. The first is a lack of digital skills. It does not only affect older people. Young people may use social media easily but still struggle to write a CV online. The second barrier is equipment. About one person in four in France has no device or only an old one. The third is connection, which affects about 8% of the population.
Emmaüs Connect responds to all three. It sells refurbished laptops for 70 to 150 euros and phones for 40 to 100 euros. It offers prepaid SIM cards that do not require a bank account. It also runs training adapted to each group.
For Baysang-Michelin, digital access is also a democratic issue. When public services move online, people who cannot use them can lose access to their rights.
Key idea: Digital inclusion requires equipment, connection, skills and public policies that include the most vulnerable.
2. Teach digital skills to newcomers
Takuya Furukawa leads the North Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg sites of ReDI School of Digital Integration in Germany. Since 2015, the school has offered free digital education to migrants and disadvantaged local residents.
Its learners come from more than 100 countries. ReDI School has trained more than 40,000 people in Germany and in Scandinavian countries.
The school offers advanced courses, such as programming and data analytics, to about 600 people a year. It also runs basic training for beginners, many of them women, and courses for children on coding and cybersecurity.
Volunteer trainers from companies teach many of the courses. Partner companies also offer internships and mentoring, and some graduates have found jobs with them.
Furukawa came to Germany from Japan and knows how hard it is to find a job without a network. For him, "digital inclusion is the foundation of our democracy."
Key idea: Free digital training and professional networks help newcomers find work and take part in society.
3. Bring help closer to people in poverty
Victoria Mandefield is the founder and CEO of Solinum in France. This non-profit start-up develops innovative projects to fight poverty.
Its main project is Soliguide. The guide lists more than 100,000 useful services for people in difficulty, such as showers, social grocery shops, day centres or legal advice. It is available online, in an app, by SMS, on WhatsApp and in printed guides.
A Solinum study found in 2018 that 71% of homeless people had a smartphone. Social workers also use Soliguide to direct people to the right service.
A social impact assessment showed that Soliguide saves social workers 7.5 minutes per referral on average. 93% of the professionals surveyed find the information up to date. Solinum also worked with the French State on common rules for these directories, including data sharing.
Key idea: Reliable, shared information helps people in difficulty get support quickly, before problems accumulate.
4. Give a digital identity to people without documents
Celia Roca is the CEO of Itwillbe in Spain. The organisation helps social organisations use technology in an ethical, conscious and safe way to reduce inequality.
Itwillbe was born in India, where its founder saw a social sector that worked mostly on paper.
One of its tools creates a digital identity for people without official documents. It uses facial biometrics and artificial intelligence. The idea came from an Indian network of almost 100 centres that protects street children. When children ran away to another city, errors in the shared database often meant starting their support again from zero.
With the tool, a social worker records basic data and a photo. Later, a new photo is enough to recognise the person reliably, even without an identity document. It can also help follow the vaccinations of children without a birth certificate.
Key idea: Technology used ethically can help organisations follow and protect people who do not appear in official records.
5. Use AI to help young people find work
William Elland-Goldsmith is the general delegate of MaVoie, an association in France. It helps young people aged 18 to 29 who feel isolated in their job search.
MaVoie runs "digital outreach" campaigns on TikTok and Instagram, where its target audience spends about three hours a day.
In September 2025, the association launched Livia, an app it describes as "Duolingo for job searching". It offers about thirty challenges, such as writing a cover letter or practising a job interview with an AI coach. The challenges then lead to free meetings with human job coaches. More than 1,000 young people have used it.
According to Elland-Goldsmith, the main barrier is a lack of self-confidence. He cites a 2023 study showing that 81% of young people from priority urban neighbourhoods give up on career aspirations for this reason. MaVoie also runs workshops on the risks of AI, such as bias and data protection.
Key idea: AI combined with human support can help young people regain confidence and learn to use these tools safely.
6. Remove bias from recruitment
Marta Rodríguez-Tobalo is the co-founder and CEO of BlindStairs in Barcelona, Spain. The company uses artificial intelligence to remove bias from recruitment.
She cites a Yale University study in which two identical CVs differed only by name: one female, one male. The CV with the female name was less likely to lead to a job offer and received a lower salary offer. She also cites an orchestra where blind auditions behind a screen sharply increased the share of women musicians.
BlindStairs applies the same principle. Companies publish job offers written in clear and inclusive language. When they receive applications, they do not see the photo, name or nationality of candidates. They only see their skills.
According to Rodríguez-Tobalo, people over 45 must send up to three times more CVs to be invited to an interview. For her, technology helps, but people must also want to change their practices.
Key idea: Hiding information that has nothing to do with skills gives every candidate a fairer chance.
7. Meet young people where they play
Lewis Kay is the founder and managing director of Esports Youth Club in London, United Kingdom. This community interest company uses video games and esports to bring young people together.
According to Kay, 90% of young people in the UK play video games. Yet gaming is often seen as isolating. Esports Youth Club offers free sessions for young people aged 11 and over in the boroughs of Southwark, Lewisham and Lambeth. Youth workers supervise every session.
Kay created the club while working as a housing officer in Brixton. It now has three hubs.
The results are encouraging. 88% of the young people who join make at least one new friend. 75% do not use any other youth service. The club also develops teamwork and runs girls-only sessions called Power Play.
Key idea: Activities young people already love can help reach them, build their confidence and protect them.
8. Build technology with communities
Laura García is the regional coordinator of Sic4Change in the Canary Islands, Spain. Created in 2017, this social organisation works in Spain, Guatemala, Peru and Mauritania.
For García, technology can bring people together instead of fragmenting society. But solutions must come from the territory and the people who live there.
In Mauritania, the Look4Health initiative uses a mobile app to detect malnutrition in children. Members of the community measure the child's arm, and the data goes directly to the local health centre. The people who carry out the detection are neighbours, and they receive a small income for this work.
In the Canary Islands, Sic4Change helps young people aged 16 to 30 find work, with local teams.
Key idea: Technology has the most impact when communities help design it and benefit directly from it.
9. Spread rare medical expertise with AI
David Caumartin is the CEO of ReBrain in France. The company grew out of academic research at Bordeaux University Hospital and Inria, the French national research institute for digital science.
ReBrain develops AI software for deep brain stimulation, a treatment for severe Parkinson's disease and essential tremor. The surgeon must place electrodes in the middle of the brain with a precision of less than one millimetre. Without help, the operation can last a full day.
ReBrain analyses a simple MRI to suggest where to place them. In Bordeaux, the operation now lasts about two hours, and the hospital has doubled its activity in this treatment. The software is authorised for use in Europe and in the United States.
According to Caumartin, only 1% of eligible patients are treated today, because it takes more than 20 years to train an expert team. For him, AI can help spread this expertise beyond a few specialised centres.
Key idea: AI can share rare expertise with more hospitals, so more patients can access complex treatments.
10. Shorten the patient journey
Dr Sophie Chung is the founder and CEO of Qunomedical, a health tech company in Berlin, Germany. It helps medical practices and hospitals digitise their administrative processes.
Chung trained as a doctor. In hospitals, she saw how much time went into tasks far from patients.
She also saw very long patient journeys. According to studies she cites, people with rare diseases need six years on average to get the right diagnosis, often because they do not reach the right doctor. Doctors and IT systems do not talk to each other.
Qunomedical offers a platform that supports the whole patient journey, from the first search to the appointment and beyond. When staff no longer need to answer the phone all day or retype paper forms, they have more time for patients. Its motto is simple: "Happy patients, happy doctors."
Key idea: Simpler administrative processes give health professionals more time for care and help patients find the right doctor faster.
11. Make online voting verifiable
Víctor Hidalgo is the global director of solutions at Assembly Voting. He works from Barcelona, Spain, for this Danish company founded in 2001.
The company was created after the disputed 2000 US presidential election. It develops online voting software for companies, universities and governments.
Its platform, Electa, is "end-to-end verifiable". Each voter can check that their vote arrived and was counted correctly. Any independent auditor can also check, with mathematical proof, that no one manipulated the votes, not even a system administrator. For Hidalgo, the strongest guarantee is when the losing candidate's own expert confirms the result.
In Denmark, Copenhagen and other major municipalities use the system. Online voting can also help people living abroad to take part.
Key idea: Digital tools can increase participation in elections if every voter and every auditor can verify the result.
12. Turn citizens into active participants
Chloé Pahud is the founder and CEO of Civocracy, based in Berlin, Germany. It is a civic tech platform and creative agency that helps municipalities, NGOs and mission-driven companies involve their communities.
In 2005, Pahud saw how activists used social media to share information and organise themselves. But for her, these platforms were not designed for real dialogue and can even damage democracy.
Civocracy relies on two levers: concrete participation, so people feel ownership, and good stories, so they understand a complex world and act.
In ten years, Civocracy has worked with about 200 governments and launched around 300 public consultations. It is now working with the German Federal Ministry in charge of climate protection on campaigns about everyday topics such as food, clothing, travel and parenting.
Key idea: Participation and cooperation between citizens, institutions and companies can help restore trust in democracy.
Twelve approaches, one European challenge
These twelve approaches address the same question: how can technology serve people instead of leaving them behind?
Emmaüs Connect and ReDI School give people the equipment and skills they need. Solinum and Itwillbe help social organisations reach people who are often invisible. MaVoie, BlindStairs and Esports Youth Club open new paths for young people and job seekers. Sic4Change builds solutions together with communities.
ReBrain and Qunomedical use technology to improve access to care. Assembly Voting and Civocracy apply it to democracy and civic participation.
These approaches share a common principle. Technology works best when it is designed with the people it serves, when it is transparent and when it supports human contact instead of replacing it.
Europe already has many organisations working on these issues. The next step is to share their knowledge and help effective solutions reach more people.
The goal is simple: technology that includes everyone, across Europe.