Friday, February 03, 2006

Volkswagen TV Broadcasts First Programme Across Europe

Text from Volkswagen AG.
EU research project with interactive VW television tests new learning platform for further education

Wolfsburg, 03 February 2006 - Volkswagen TV broadcast its first programme across Europe on Friday within the framework of an EU research project. A total of 40 companies and project partners in Germany, France, Greece, Great Britain, Italy, Austria, Poland, Sweden and Spain were connected live during the 45 minute transmission. The interactive VW television project is to test a new learning platform for the further training of employees in Europe.

This research project is sponsored by the EU education programme Leonardo da Vinci. Over the last few months, Volkswagen has been able to convince 20 project partners in nine countries to get involved. These partners then enable access to Volkswagen TV for a further 40 small and medium-sized companies and educational institutions.

The bi-lingual, German/English opening programme with topics such as "What is Volkswagen TV?“ as well as the content and objectives of the EU project was watched by those people who are responsible for training in their companies and institutions and who are looking for new methods for the training of their employees. Volkswagen TV demonstrates a broad range of the different opportunities for learning and teaching that are available.

Volkswagen TV has, since the summer of 2002, already proven itself to be a competent partner in the scope of interactive training and information television for the Volkswagen dealers in Germany. The employees in approximately 2,500 dealers and service locations regularly watch the transmissions. Furthermore, 23 VW importers have now signed up for the programme. The various contents of the programmes range from repair support via employee training to information about new products and management.

The concept of Volkswagen TV is also interesting for small and medium-sized companies in the whole of Europe. Horst Walka, the head of training at Volkswagen After Sales, is convinced of this: "Employee training is a decisive criterion for the success of any company. That's why we have to make training at the workplace possible throughout an entire career. We have had very positive results with Volkswagen TV. We now want to test and implement this medium throughout Europe within the scope of the EU research project."

The learning culture and training needs of companies in the individual European countries will first be researched. Decisive aspects such as multilingualism, comprehensibility and simultaneous transmission are the focus of these considerations. Volkswagen TV will broadcast a further ten programmes in this series by July 2006. The EU research project with the interactive television programme at Volkswagen will run until September 2007.

Volkswagen Service®
Volkswagen Service guarantees the mobility of Volkswagen customers worldwide. Its range of activities includes the training and provision of information for the 200,000 service employees in dealerships, the toll-free service hotline 0800-VOLKSWAGEN and the LongLife mobility guarantee. Volkswagen has also developed concepts for the environmentally-friendly disposal of end-of-life vehicles. Volkswagen Service has more than 10,000 partner dealerships worldwide and in Germany it has the biggest service network of all automobile manufacturers with approximately 2500 dealers.