International Conference on EU Skills, Digital Transformation and IT Professionalism

• November 19, 2018
• admin

As part of the IT Professionalism Framework led by the European Commission, a conference was organised by Capgemini on the 15th of November 2018. The EU Skills Conference contributed to the success of the EU Skills Agenda and the increase of Europe’s digital talent pool and the digital capabilities of enterprises. The impact of technology on the economy and on society is beyond comparison. It sought to answer some questions on how do organisations innovate and use technology to fundamentally change their business models, what competencies and skills are pivotal in that digital journey? This conference also addressed how companies approach and lead digital transformation, how they tackle existing skills gaps and also explored concrete instruments that contribute to further maturing the IT profession. The Conference hosted a number of experts on the subjects. eSkills Malta Foundation Chief Administrator was invited to speak about what is Malta doing to increase digital skills and develop the IT Profession.

The Conference was introduced by Niels van der Linden from Capgemini. He explained the importance of competencies, skills, and IT frameworks for the development of the IT Profession the modelling they bring to successful organisations. He explained the DIGIFRAME framework and its outcome.

This was followed by important speeches by Andre Richier, Principal Administrator, Directorate General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs emphasising the importance of IT Frameworks in the eyes of the European Commission and how these fit in the wider spectrum; Emmanuel Gaudin, CIO at Lagardère & Co-Chairman of European CIO Association; Frederic Lau, Mission Manager from Cigref; Claudia Clummenerl, Vice-president and Expert in Change Management and HR Transformation Capgemini Invent; Jiri Branka, Expert in Labour Market Intelligence and Skill Needs at CEDEFOP; Marianne Kolding, Vice-president and European Core Research Excellence Leader, European Skills Practice at IDC; Werner Korte, Director at Empirica; Zane Schveer, Sr. Marketing Manager at Global Knowledge.

Carm Cachia, eSkills Malta Foundation Chief Administrator was also invited to speak where he highlighted the work that the Foundation is doing to tackle the skills gap, making reference to the National eSkills Strategy which is being finalised at the moment. He explained the reason of embarking on such a project and the challenges that lie ahead for Malta in the advent of an existing gap in the number of resources needed by Malta and the skills required by ICT companies, sectoral industry, and information society, and the education and training challenges for the country.

Various panel discussions then took place including one moderated by Niel van der Linden on digital capability reference framework: building capabilities and competencies in tandem, another moderated by Austeja Trinkunaite from CEPIS about the European IT Professionalism standards supporting industry on their digital journey. Carm Cachia participated in this panel discussion.

IT Professionalism Europe (ITPE) launched their ‘Declaration on IT Professionalism for Europe’. All attendees of the conference signed the declaration as a strong indication of support. ITPE starts the second phase of its organisation where their workshops will feed into the Technical Standard 428, which is the CEN standard for ICT Professionalism and Digital Competences. We encourage Maltese ICT organisation who are interested to do the same. Please refer to http://www.itprofessionalism.org/sign-the-declaration/

The conference was concluded by Andre Richier giving his views on the way forward, while Niels van der Linden thanked all the speakers and panel members and attendees for participating with interest in this IT Professionalism, EU Skills and Digital Transformation conference.