A recent report from Euractiv points out that, as the war for tech talents is raging worldwide, European companies are facing difficulties in recruiting information and communication technology (ICT) specialists.
In the EU, States are looking for solutions to this problem. In Cyprus, this May, the European association All Digital, the Cyprus Computer Society, and the global technology company Huawei organised a one-day coding challenge in Nicosia to raise awareness of the issue.
As Euractiv reports, the event aimed to motivate young Cypriots to go down the coding road as such skills are becoming more critical. “Coding should be accessible to everyone”, said Peter Palvolgyi, All Digital’s CEO, adding that “it can be better reached through non-formal education”.
The 27 participants were offered a chance to get training on HUAWEI Mobile Services – the Chinese company that acted as a technical partner – and feedback and advice from coding masters. “We know the ecosystem of applications is very important”, declared Marco Xu, Public Affairs Director for Central, Eastern and Northern Europe at Huawei, to EURACTIV, stressing that such events are a chance to encourage developers to use their platform.
“Most of the students graduating now only have basic knowledge, not the specialist knowledge the companies need”, he said, pointing out an ever-changing industry that requires experts to be on the cutting edge.
In Cyprus alone, there is a shortage of some 4,000 IT specialists, according to Kyriacos Kokkinos, the country’s Deputy Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy, who delivered a speech at the event.
To address these shortages, which are also found across Europe, the European Commission presented a plan in September 2021 called the “Path to Digital Decade”. This initiative aims to ensure that the continent will fully embrace digitalisation by 2030.
As part of the set targets put forward, at least 80% of the bloc’s citizens should have basic digital skills, and the EU27 should be able to rely on 20 million ICT workers by 2030.
“That is not an easy task to achieve”, declared the Cypriot minister, calling it an “ambitious” objective but committing to make it a “high priority of the government”. Huawei is “ready to become one of the contributors of this [European] ambition”, Xu also said.
“The shortages have two dimensions”, Kokkinnos told EURACTIV. He mentioned it was not only about quantity but also about quality. “There is a lack of market needs”, he said, stressing that the skills students learn at university already need upgrading when they enter the labour market. “Coding is like moving sand. You need to be always on the edge”, he stressed.
Not all countries are on the right track when it comes to skills, according to the 2021 Digital Ec anomy and Society Index (DESI), an index assessing member states’ digital performance.