Like many young people across Europe, Bulgarian youth are also struggling to find their best opportunities. A survey last year by the National Employment Agency shows that more than 19% of Bulgarian youth aged 15 to 29 are unemployed; while other estimates indicate that this number is actually closer to 30%. Eurobarometer research shows that 74% of Bulgarian youth want to immigrate. The country’s...

Young, high-potential & yet lacking the employable skills that open the door to our labour market? Sharpening the lens on a critical European business and political issue: YOUTH.  Collectively, European industry, government, and education providers convened last month at the Youth, The Key to Europe’s Future event hosted by Microsoft under the common accord that Skills are the global...

14 million European young people are not in employment, education or training, and at the same time thousands of jobs remain unfilled.

Youth unemployment in Europe is high. In many cases there are jobs available but the skill sets to meet them are scarce. Digital skills are in high demand and essential for enhancing employability, and driving innovation and sustainable growth in Europe. 

Today we are announcing Microsoft YouthSpark, a new company-wide initiative designed to create opportunities for 300 million youth in 100 countries over the next three years.

The prospects for Europe's youth were never bleaker; the prospects were never brighter.

Why the industrial model – hierarchical organizations using standardised methods to produce uniform products – no longer works for schools or students.

According to the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, one in six people in the European Union has a disability so severe that it prevents them from fully taking part in society due to environmental and attitudinal barriers.

In these challenging economic times, helping European students to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to support their success as adults has become critical to the long-term competitiveness of Europe.

For years, Microsoft has been working with governments to help large scale transformation of education.  Since 2007, one of the key elements of that work has been the Shape the Future program.

Early on in the year, much was being said about youth employability being the key to the economic crisis. We felt that was the problem. It was only being said, little was being done.

Her Royal Highness, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark welcomed hundreds of students, IT industry leaders, member state officials and representatives from the education community to discuss the theme, “Future Jobs and e-Skills in Europe” in Copenhagen for the official closing event of European e-Skills Week 2012.

Where Europe succeeds, we succeed Europe matters to us. For the past thirty years, it’s been our aim to help fuel the European economy with the programs, partnerships, products and services we deliver, through ourselves and others. Our investment has reaped significant return for thousands of new and existing businesses across the continent. In an increasingly hyper-connected world,...

Microsoft Certification has come a long way in its first twenty years. It made its debut with the Microsoft Certified Professional Program, a measuring tool for employers and IT professionals.

The EU Commission is constantly working on developing common policies and regulations on how to address the challenges of migration and promote successful integration. The Europe 2020 Strategy targets to raise the employment rate of 20-64 year olds in the EU to 75%.

There is a great sense of momentum right now in the digital inclusion community. From grass roots volunteers getting people online across Europe, to the highest level policymakers, everyone has noticed it.

Did you know that one in six people in the European Union - around 80 million – have a disability that ranges from mild to severe? Moreover, only 50% of the disabled people of working age are in employment.

The Race Online 2012  campaign has been established to provide all UK citizens with the opportunity to experience and use the internet, safely, to improve their digital skills, communicate online and take advantage of the many financial savings that are only available online.

In July 2011, Romania’s first Digital Agenda conference highlighted the importance of getting every European citizen online and equipping them with the right digital skills.

It’s all about inspiring breakthroughs!

As part of Employment Week, Microsoft acted as main sponsors providing leadership to a series of events and awards where one of the highlights was the Skills for Employability ceremony. 

“This is not a niche group!”, “ Let’s not still be having the same discussion in 20 years!”, “Let’s get the elephant out of the room!”  were just some of the impassioned rallying cries at the Employer Forum on Accessibility in the Workplace last week.

Get Online Week starts today across Europe, running from the 28th February – 5th March 2011. As the name suggests, the awareness week aims to get people using the Internet and gaining the skills needed to participate in the new information-based economy. Even in this age of smartphones, wi-fi hotspots and social media, 200 million people in Europe are still without the Internet.

Take a Microsoft consultant in Madrid, add a PR Director in Kiev,  include a development tools specialist in Warsaw and an online marketing director in London. Then add to this the HR consultant in Dublin and finally throw in a very generous sprinkling of technical experts all around Europe. That’s when you start to get a sense of the cumulative value that employees at Microsoft are...

Since its launch in 2003, Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential (UP) community technology skills program has reached more than 50,000 community organizations across the world in bringing technology access and skills training to more than 170 million individuals. 

Between them, Microsoft technology specialists Artur Żarski, Carlos de Huerta Mezquita and John Arnold have spent more than 40 years at the forefront of the IT revolution. As Microsoft technology volunteers, they also share this wealth of expertise with their local communities. And as finalists in Microsoft Europe’s 2010 European Volunteering Awards, Artur, Carlos and John provide inspiring examples...

Imagine walking out to compete at the world-famous marble stadium where athletes gathered for the Panathenaic Games in ancient times and the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, and where the 2004 Olympic marathons finished. That’s the dream of thousands of Special Olympics participants around the world who are striving towards the 2011 Special Olympics Summer World Games, in Athens, Greece.  

The ‘European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion' is drawing to a close. This should make us wonder why we still see an unacceptably high number of Europeans enduring both poverty and social exclusion. Both are being heightened by the economic crisis, but the headlines often focus on the immediate casualties of the crisis – those whose jobs and benefits come first in the firing...

For many years at Microsoft, we have been deeply committed as a company to ensuring that the magic of software is accessible also to the non-profit community worldwide. Nonprofit organizations generally strive to serve communities and fill gaps in tough economic times, where resources are increasingly tight. 

I want to share my reflections on the recent announcement of the “Youth on The Move” initiative launched by the European Commission.  First of all, I was very pleased to see how much this initiative recognizes that opening doors to employability is at the heart of Europe’s success in 2020.  Microsoft is a partner in this journey.

Technology can be an amazing tool to help drive social change and economic development. In their constant struggle to do more with less, many nonprofits have already embraced technology to improve productivity and reduce costs.

The Europe 2020 strategy calls for economic growth based on a smart, sustainable and inclusive model that targets an overall employment rate of 75% and a reduction of poverty by 20 Million among other priorities.

The 2010 Zero Poverty campaign spearheaded by Caritas in Europe reveals that 1 person in 10 with a job in the EU nonetheless lives in poverty.

Sylvie Laffarge tells FUTURES why eSkills are increasingly important for immigrant women looking for employment in the EU.

Caritas and Microsoft are working together to help disadvantaged people in Europe find employment, escape poverty and overcome exclusion through access to computer skills training.  

www.e-aptitudini.ro portal puts the incentive on upgrading skills! An initiative launched during the European eSkills Week by Junior Achievement Romania and Microsoft to match the demand for eSkills trainings against available educational resources! 

Education is one of the important targets in Europe’s 2020 Strategy and rightly so.

With support from Microsoft, enabling Telecentre-Europe to meet and develop the bid, they have secured a €260,000 capacity-building grant from the EU Grundtvig Program. 

Women now account for over half of Europe’s immigrants. They face many challenges including higher unemployment and are often clustered in less-skilled occupations.

Yesterday I attended an MEP breakfast debate on e-skills, organized by Digital Europe.  It was an enriching debate which demonstrated the level of interest and activity that stakeholders are carrying forward to raise the profile of ICT as a key skill-set for the jobs of the future. Europe needs ICT-ready people to embrace the vision of the Digital Agenda. We need faster transition from “learning...

This video captures snapshots of the thoughts, recommendations and commentary that were sparked during the November 30th dinner debate around 'Skills for Innovation'.

In the coming five years, only 10% of jobs will be left for those who have no ICT skills, a figure that is especially significant at a time of rising unemployment in Europe and worldwide.

We are glad to see that we at Microsoft are taking on challenge and the leadership to boost skills and employability in Europe especially in today's tough economic times.

No longer confined to geeks, eSkills is everybody's business.

“Technology can play a crucial role in enabling nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) to achieve their goals, share best practices, raise funds and learn from one another. Since NGOs are our partners in delivering great community affairs programs, it is in our interest to support them in building their technology capacities as a route to fostering their key role as social entrepreneurs and...

Working with Ireland's most disadvantaged communities, the Fastrack to IT (FIT) is a successful example of an industry initiative which brings together government organisations with companies such as Microsoft to couple IT skills with a structured programme to help individuals to secure full-time employment.

Ali Tarabit has been a volunteer with the charity organization Aviation Sans Frontières (ASF) for almost three years. With his help, ASF has revolutionised its office operations, improving its efficiency and opening up new possibilities.

Innovation isn't just what scientists and engineers do: it's also a feature of many community-based organisations and social entrepreneurs. But the result is the same: new ways of doing things and new products and services that enable people to change their lives.