Helping people gain skills for a changing economy
Tag: workforce development
Sylvie Laffarge, Microsoft's Director Community Affairs Europe, tells FUTURES that in challenging economic times, collaboration and investment in education and skills training are more important than ever.
What is the focus of Microsoft’s community investment strategy?
Our approach is all about technology empowerment. Through the Microsoft Community Skills Technology Programme, we focus on supporting community organisations to provide first-class technology skills training and certifications to people from underserved populations, such as women, youth, senior citizens, and people with disabilities. We see this as a key pathway for people to gain new skills needed in a rapidly changing economy and be empowered in their daily lives. We also focus on building up the technological capacity of community NGOs so they can use technology to achieve their goals and reach more people. Both aspects are clearly in high demand given the current economic situation.
The Community Skills Technology Program provides technology skills training.
How do you bring innovation into your programmes?
Our investments include financial grants, software donations, curriculum development, employee volunteering and education for NGOs. We aim to bring our product innovations directly into the community space, so that people doing Microsoft-supported IT skills training are learning using the latest technologies. We also work closely with our community partners to develop and support innovative support systems for their work, such as the Telecentre-Europe network, which provides a learning network for telecentre staff, and the Microsoft NGO Connection online portal which provides onestop access for NGOs to our technology training resources. And we enable Microsoft staff to volunteer at community NGOs to apply their individual talents and innovative ideas to specific challenges.
How do you see your programmes contributing in challenging economic times?
Education and skills are a priority area for many countries' economic resilience strategies, and it is more important than ever for governments, business and communities to collaborate closely to maximise reach and results. Technology skills are clearly essential to competitiveness and resilience in every sector of the economy, and also for the future transition to a greener economy. Microsoft is very committed to community partnership and investment in technology skills, and our programmes are embedded in how we do business. Over the next three years we aim to reach 4.7 million people in over 3,000 Community Technology Centres with our partners across Europe, and I am totally confident that it is with their help that we can make an even more valued contribution.