Putting new skills and new innovation on the horizon. 1,2 Million Hungarians embrace digital skills in the workplace
2010. June 08.
Against the backdrop of the biggest eSkills campaign in Europe, an exciting national eSkills roadshow to help stimulate economic growth in Hungary was launched by Microsoft together with the Association of IT Enterprises and the HELB Foundation
This co-joint initiative between industry, academia and NGOs is
based on a broader project known as 'TITAN' that defines itself as
primary support for the rebuilding of the Hungarian
economy in the field of employability and
competitiveness. Those actively engaged numbered 2000
Small and Medium sized enterprises (SME's) and
students! Strong media awareness was driven around the
need for citizens to upgrade digital skills, in
response more than 130 press articles covered the
campaign. We welcomed the supportive stance of Laszlo
Andor, European Commissioner for Employment and Social
Affairs as a signal that this co-joint project is moving
in the right direction. It was significant to see that he
reaffirmed the importance of raising the priority of training and
skills on the political agenda, here is his video message to
conference participants at the closing event:
"It is fundamental to Europe's competitiveness that its
citizens perpetually refresh their knowledge within the framework
of life-long learning. Enterprises should continually train their
employees, especially in the field of ICT Technologies…I think it
is essential that the EU2020 strategy should reflect the importance
of e-skills… If cooperation can be established between political
stakeholders, NGOs, and enterprises, Europe can become one of the
most competitive world regions."
We are excited to see that the mass e-skills training
programme is expected to make a marked impact and is
awaiting the final green light and financing from EU funds from the
new government. The TITAN programme aims to train and
re-skill 1,2 million Hungarian citizens (IT
Pros/entrepreneurs/general workforce) with different levels of
e-skills in 5 years.
The decision was taken by partners to pilot an SME
curriculum and promote enhanced digital solutions for
business efficiency. A crucial bottleneck behind the
current weakness and underperformance of Hungarian economy
is the introverted, untrusting nature of most Hungarian
entrepreneurs. TITAN aims at helping them understand the
crucial importance of "thinking IT" and the
inevitability of life-long training for both themselves and their
employees. All are doomed to fail in face of the global competition
without the necessary skills. In this vein, the e-skills week
campaign also hosted a TITAN pilot seminar for more than
600 SMEs, where participants were trained for the
rules of the digital economy in subjects such as IT
deployment projects, online marketing, IT security, ERP solutions
etc.
We firmly believe that renewed government
engagement for TITAN is a necessity, as a training
programme of this magnitude can only be successful if all partners
contribute their shares. Reinforcing the existing multi-stakeholder
alliance, a declaration entitled "Digital wake-up"
has been signed by all stakeholders at the end of the campaign. The
declaration urges TITAN implementation and proposes
e-skills to be made a priority for the Hungarian EU Council
Presidency in the first half of 2011. One of the
most important stakeholders who put their signature on the
declaration is MEP and EU e-skills Ambassador Edit
Herczog:
"The EU has realized that ICT skills are a key
instrument for tackling the challenges Europe faces. For the
creation of a successful Europe there is a need for developing a
long-term digital preparedness strategy, as it is essential to
create the Single Digital Market. The promotion of employability
and digital cohesion through enhancing quality education and
vocational training for future generations provides an opportunity
for Europe through which an intelligent and sustainable growth can
be attained."
The new government has made a pledge of creating
1.000.000 new jobs, and what would be a million jobs without a
million people trained for digital literacy and user
skills? Indeed, IDC forecast for Hungary that 92%
of jobs available by 2014 will only be for the digitally
literate -This is definitely an impetus for
action!
Source:
http://www.microsoft.eu/Posts/Viewer/tabid/120/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/654/Menu/3/Putting-new-skills-and-new-innovation-on-the-horizon-12-Million-Hungarians-embrace-digital-skills-in-the-workplace.aspx