The social institution of Finland (Kela)
My family consists of my wife and my children. Nowadays our all children get child benefit and in former situation we have taken maternity package once and two times maternity package as a cash benefit. Also we have got different kind of parental allowances when the children have been small. I am also a student now, but I do not get any financial aids because I also work normally. I have paid student healthcare fee, but for me it is quite difficult to understand why I have to pay that fee. I have very good occupational health care and It covers almost everything. During my former studies I have got financial aids for students. For example I have experience of study grant and housing supplement. Kela’s services and the social security system is very famialiar to me because of my work. I can say, that we have the very good social security system in Finland. Still I have to also say that the public social security is not enough when something really grave happens, for example almost every time serious illness also means big financial problems for all and the social security do not cover that. The European health care card was familiar to me before this course because of my work.
Omakanta
I have used Omakanta service before. I have for example watched my and my children personal health care data from there and also I took there my Covid19 vaccination report. I signed in with my bank ID. Omakanta service needs strong authentication and today it is possible to do online. Personal health care data is very sensitive and also omakanta was familiar to me before this course bacause of my job.
Pension
On my former working career I have sold pension insurances and that is why the Finnish pension scheme is also familiar to me. Pension insurances are basic and important products to insurance companies. I checked my predicted pension when I am 63 and 68 years old. It was nor surprised that predicted pension is quite small compared to the salary. I think it is good to try to do some extra pension if it is possible.
Digital shops
I visited in all the listed digital shops sites. Before this course I have heard and read something all of these companies, but I have only used services from booking.com. I think that all of these ditital shop’s prizes are allmost same as local shops here in Finland. Maybe the prizes are little bit smaller than in local shops. It is easy to say that service is very easy and we can buy/order things and service very easily. Also shipping is very well organized and it is easy to find out how it works and how much it costs. All these shops seems to be quite reliable but I still had some suspicions. I think that it is big step to me to start using digital shop’s services from abroad. I also try to be responsible consumer and use as much as I can local and Finnish companies services. Digital shops competition is all over the world and nowadays it is easy to buy digitally.
IF mobile
LocalTapiola in an insurance company and I work there. Insurance company If is our competitor and I have life insurance from there because of our trade union and its’ discounts. If have the application called If mobile. It is very easy to use and also sign in. Usually I sign there in by using my fingerprint. In this application all the companies clients can watch and handle their insurances, watch and pay their invoices, make claim informations and get customer service. It is also easy to buy new insurances from this app because this app will guide customer to the company’s home site and online shop when client needs new insurance products. If customer have this application, customer has all insurances on his/her hand. I think that allmost all of the insurance companies in Finland has own application today.
Digitalization and digital gap
Digitalization is going very fast forward. Also technology has made big steps. I think that we all have to update our knowledge and skillfullnes all the time. If we are not going to do that, it is very probable that people will have big problems. Digitalization is very good for people who want and can update their skillfulness, for example almost all the services are on your hand. In working life these kind of people have a lot of jobs to do in the future. For example bank and insurance services are on our hand today. Digitalization will decrease easy and basic jobs in the future. This means that we all have to have some special skills and also demand of education will increase. Because of these things the digital cap is true if people do not want to learn new digital things and use new digital services. For example elderly and low educated people will have big problems. Today for example elderly people have serious problems in their daily banking services. In the future society will have to take care of elderly people more seriously.
The Digital competence test
My test results are below on the picture. According to these test’s results I am an advanced level. Description of my level mean, that I am able to perform many different tasks and guide others in doing the same. I think that I can also solve most of the problems on my own. My weakest area was production area and the best area was information. According to the results automation was the weakest area inside the whole production. For me it was not suprising that self-service was the best. As a whole I might say that I am quite hard grader for myself. I have to say that computer is a very big part of my every day work.
Self reflection
In this section it was intresting to familiarize digital shops abroad. Before this course and section the social institution of Finland (Kela) and our pension system were quite familiar to me. I think that it was still good to rehearse these topics. I learned that digitalization is true and we all can make purchases from all over the world. Applications makes services easier and it is very easy to get service with the help of applications. Also I learned that the digital gap is true and it is quite severe problem for elderly people and low educated people. We all need to advance our skills all the time. The digital competence wheel test’s result was not a surprise to me. I was an advanced level according to the results. In the future I have to enhance my knowledge all the time. It was also intresting to read other students blogs and experiences. I commented three articles and these articles are listed below:
DIGI CITIZEN – Roosa’s site (savonia.fi)
DIGI CITIZEN | Sari´s site (savonia.fi)
DIGI CITIZEN – Jaana’s site (savonia.fi)
References
https://www.if.fi/henkiloasiakkaat
https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/162438/VNTEAS_2020_43.pdf