Digital competencies are now more relevant in the labour market than ever before. The EU Digital Decade targets, aspiring to equip min. 80% of the European population with basic digital skills and train at least 20 million ICT specialists by 2030, make for a truly ambitious goal.
Moreover, only last week, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, named 2023 the European Year of Skills. Women4IT shares this vision and is fully committed to taking decisive actions toward these objectives.
Since 2018, Women4IT – an initiative funded by the EEA and Norway Grants – has been on a mission to empower young women at the risk of exclusion from the labour market and improve their employability prospects. This is done by providing them with targeted digital skills training and assistance in securing junior-level jobs in the technological sector – all entirely free of charge. In recent years’ piloting efforts, Women4IT trained more than 900 young women in Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania and Spain, with over 72% success rate in entering the job market following the training in 8 job profiles specifically developed in close partnership with committed employers. Women4IT has also produced an innovative profiling tool for people looking to enter the labour market or reskill towards a career in digital, replicable curricula and training roadmaps, and a multi-purpose employment toolkit.
Now, a new tool has been added to the Women4IT portfolio: the Open Educational Resources (OERs). In short, OERs are learning, teaching and research materials carefully curated by the Women4IT partners to foster accessible digital education across Europe. The increasingly growing library of +300 third-party educational content includes resources such as mini-courses, training syllabi, reports, articles and podcasts covering a wide range of topics, occupational profiles’ competencies and skill levels. It is hosted on the Women4IT training platform and available in 6 EU languages at zero cost to everyone who wishes to expand their tech knowledge and boost digital skills at their own pace.
Eager to start learning? Discover the Women4IT OER library and find out more about the initiative.
For more information, please contact:
- Māra Jākobsone (Mara@likta.lv)
- Katarzyna Udała (Katarzyna.udala@digitaleurope.org)
