The European Commission aims to impart basic digital skills on at least 80% of adult European citizens by 2030, employ over 20 million IT specialists and encourage more women to work in the IT sector. To implement this, the Commission has developed initiatives like the European Skills Agenda and the Action Plan for Digital Education.
Microsoft, LinkedIn and GitHub are also participating in this challenge with a global plan to help individuals acquire the skills necessary to work in an increasingly digitalised world. One year after its launch, the programme has reached over 40 million people around the world and nearly 9 million people in Europe, of which over 6 million in the EU.
The Microsoft Corporate Blog has published a post entitled “Mind the Digital Skills Gap: A Closer Look at the Global Skills Initiative in Europe” describing what the non-profit organisations are organising with Microsoft in Romania, Greece and Italy.
For Italy, the post describes the work conducted by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale through two short anecdotes: Francesca Maria Pia Nicoletti, an eighteen-year-old student, and Giulio Carra, 67 years old.
“In Italia, Microsoft has collaborated with the Fondazione Mondo Digitale (FMD), a non-profit organisation with experience in education and digital innovation. The organisation focuses especially on the individuals most at risk of exclusion, such as elder workers, immigrants and young unemployed people.
Thanks to its national network of schools, the FMD has provided digital skills to thousands of students, particularly in Italian cities with a high unemployment rate, such as Rome, Palermo and Bari. The programmes organised by FMD help youth not only to acquire digital skills, but also to make decisions about their future careers.”
