project women4it

Innovative solutions to promote the employment of young women into digital jobs

September marks the end of the first year of the “YOUNG-ICT WOMEN: Innovative Solutions to increase the numbers of EU vulnerable girls and young women the into digital agenda” Project No. 2017-1-094), in short WOMEN4IT project funded by the Youth Employment Programme of the EEA and Norway Grants and implemented under the leadership of the Latvian Information and Communication Technology Association (LIKTA), with partners from Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Romania and Spain years 2018-2021.

The Women4IT project aims to increase the employability of young women (15 -29 years)    in digital technologies and boost the opportunities female talent brings to economic growth. The project will assess the digital skills of 1000 women in 7 countries, provide digital skills training and personalized career guidance to minimum 700 of them, based on the need and support of employers and reach 10.000 youth by digital career awareness activities.

During the first year, partners have launched the national participatory platforms in their country and released two research studies: The first one on good practices and initiatives regarding improving the employment in ICT sector jobs of women and NEETs in the partner countries (Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania and Spain). The study offers innovative solutions to promote the employment of young women in digital jobs, taking into account the current needs of the labour market from the perspective of employers, stakeholders and young women

The second study released, presents the results of the needs assessment desk and field research to highlight key elements and issues regarding young women access to technology, labor markets, digital training as well as labour market demands. The study identifies future trends in employability regarding digital skills to prepare trainees for the work challenges and provides input for designing of new innovative profiling solutions.

Finally, partners have identified the eight digital jobs profiles found to be the most suitable and appropriate for the needs of the future labour market include: Customer Support Specialist,Data Analyst, Data Protection Specialist, Digital Media Specialist, Graphic designer, Personal / Project Assistant, Software Tester and Web developer

 

 

During the first year the project has gained considerable visibility through presentation in e.g. ICT 2018 EU Commission Conference in Vienna in December 2018, the e-skills4diversity, European high-level digital skills conference in February and the Start-Up Europe Summit during the Romanian EU Presidency Conference in Cluj in March this year and through broad social media outreach.

In October project partners will meet in Dublin and will start the second year of the project,  by presenting a test version of the online platform for profiling. Once finetuned, the tool will be translated into 7 languages for the assessment of digital competences for the specific profiles of digital professions to prepare for the launch of the new online platform in all countries.

Norway-Grants-Women4IT