The ELISA proposal aims at improving the access to knowledge and the information society of SMEs in South-East Europe, through close cooperation of academic and business communities at a transnational level, by transferring EU best practice training know-how and by developing national training strategies. Emphasis is given to SMEs from rural and distant areas in Albania, FYROM, Bulgaria and Serbia-Montenegro (beneficiary countries). This overall objective will be achieved through the following actions:• Awareness creation on the benefits of ICT business use by SMEs.• Customization of a multilingual, highly-interactive and easy-to-use eLearning-platform for the needs of SMEs. • Creation of a customizable multilingual training material for improving ICT skills within SMEs. • Pilot implementation of ICT training actions. • Design of SME ICT training strategies for the beneficiary countries. • Diffusion of the know-how gained to policy makers and interested organizations. Expected Results: The overall objective of improving access to the knowledge and information society will be achieved by the following actions and planned results: - Raising awareness of the benefits of using ICT in SMEs, - Customisation of a multilingual, highly-interactive and easy-to-use e-learning-platform meeting the needs of SMEs, - Creation of customisable multilingual training material for improving ICT skills within SMEs, - Pilot implementation of ICT training actions, - Design of SME ICT training strategies for the beneficiary countries, - Dissemination of the know-how gained by policymakers and interested organisations, - Raising policymakers' awareness of the importance of access to the knowledge and information society for SMEs, - Acceleration of ICT access of SMEs from the beneficiary countries, - Improvement of business performance via the adoption of e-business practices, - Adoption of e-learning as a training practice, - Improvement of transnational business collaboration, - Establishment of links between academic and business networks at transnational level.