| HP is one of the founding partners of an industry forum that aims to address the gap in IT skills amongst Europe’s workforce. Working with the EU Commission, the e-Skills Industry Leadership Board (ILB) is an umbrella body that will accommodate specific EU-wide initiatives supported by its members addressing issues like IT basic skills for the broad population, as well as developing and updating advanced IT skills needed to drive innovation and economic growth. |
| Gabriele Zedlmayer, vice president of Corporate Marketing and Global Citizenship for HP in EMEA, attended the inaugural meeting and is liaising with other ILB members to start sharing best practices and learnings from HP’s own initiatives in this space. |
| “There is tremendous value in pooling expertise and resources in our industry to address the issue of IT skills in Europe together,” said Gabriele. “E-Skills directly affect our business and greatly influence the future innovation potential of this region, so it’s a shared concern of all ICT companies. It makes sense for us to join forces to find solutions to this pressing issue,” she said. |
| As a founding partner, HP is part of the ILB working group and contributes to current discussions that will lead to joint objectives and an agreed approach which will be published in 2008. |
Building on extensive experience with IT skills |
| HP currently supports programmes and initiatives to improve basic IT skills and to further research and innovation in science, maths, engineering and IT-related subjects through the use of HP’s mobile solutions. It also collaborates with UNESCO on the issue of “brain drain” to address the emigration trend of post-graduate academics in South East Europe and a number of African countries. |
HP offers IT skills training through its flagship initiative GET-IT  which allows young people to improve their IT skills needed to succeed at work. HP is also a platinum sponsor of the Micro-Enterprise Acceleration Institute (MEA-I) which delivers access to IT and training for micro businesses with the aim of supporting business growth and increased competitiveness. |
| HP’s Technology for Teaching grants have provided equipment and cash to 30 universities in Europe, the Middle East and Africa over the last three years to boost the innovative use of mobile technology in teaching and research. |
| HP’s UNESCO collaboration on addressing “brain drain” was first piloted in a number of South East European countries, including the Balkan region, and a second wave rolled out in six African countries. At the heart of the initiative is the link up of emigrated researchers to their “home” universities and the research community there through connecting IT systems with grid computing, facilitating collaboration and knowledge exchange. |
| Founded on 7th June 2007 in the presence of Vice-President Guenther Verheugen of the European Commission, the e-Skills ILB aims to lead the ICT sector’s contribution to the development and implementation of a long term e-skills and digital literacy agenda in Europe. |
| As immediate areas of focus, the ILB will work on: |
- Motivating and empowering future generations with e-skills
|
- Promoting ICT practitioner learning, education, competences and training
|
- Boosting the employability and productivity of the workforce with ICT user skills, including the deployment of multi-stakeholder partnerships
|
- Provide foresight and support for future skills needed in a changing environment with emerging technologies and new business models
|
| The e-Skills ILB will work in partnership with public authorities across Europe, other industry sectors, SMEs and all relevant stakeholders, building upon the European Commission recommendations and other reference initiatives on e-skills. |
| The members of the e-Skills ILB include CEPIS, Cisco, CompTIA, ECDL Foundation, ECONET, EITO, EXIN, Global Knowledge Network, HP, INLEA Foundation, Microsoft, Oracle, Pearson, Prometric and Siemens Enterprise Communications. |
|
 |
Global Citizenship Reports 2006 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Printable version