You’ve all seen the figures over the past year and more that show high youth unemployment across some European Union Member States. But do people know that technology can have an enabling role in Europe and beyond? 

Microsoft’s event “Transforming education to regain economic prosperity”, will seek to promote and explore new assessment methods around collaborative problem solving. The discussion with key actors involved in this project, will provide guidelines to policy makers on how to help education communities prepare for PISA 2015.

Microsoft is happy to sponsor this year’s European Employment Forum 2012, which will take place in Brussels on the 27th & 28th of November.

"Europe needs a youth guarantee - that young people will be in work, training or education within months of leaving school’’ László Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

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. 

The European Employment Forum 2011 is taking place in Brussels on the 22nd & 23rd of November in the frame of the Employment Week and is co-organized by the European Commission. The event will look at the labour market in the light of the significant changes that have taken place over the past few years in the global economy. Despite the often gloomy outlook, there are reasons for optimism, and...

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.

You, readers may recall James Thurston’s earlier blog on the Europe 2020 strategy; leveraging the labour market to drive European economic growth, via a ‘smart, sustainable and inclusive model’ to harness untapped employment potential. As the world continues to battle to the burden of recession, this quest remains as relevant as ever.

“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.

Business is moving to the cloud. According to IDC* predictions for 2011, 80% of new software will be available as cloud services; by 2014, over one-third of software purchases will be delivered through the cloud. 

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.

Youth unemployment remains around 20% within the UK and across the OECD. A key challenge facing young people is that they are lacking the experience to enable them to successfully compete for jobs in a tight labour market. 

Office 365 for education will extend learning possibilities to students while helping them master technology they will use in their future careers.

Last month, people from around the world gathered at two education events in London – the Education World Forum (EWF) and the BETT trade show, one of the largest ICT in education conferences worldwide – to discuss how technology can help improve the state of education globally. Interestingly, The New York Times recently reported on the modern day skills students need to excel and succeed in...

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. 

Microsoft’s more than 16,000 employees in Europe possess a great wealth of talent and skills, not only in software engineering, development and deployment but also in many non-IT fields that are essential for all successful organizations -- from marketing and public relations to customer relationship management and key corporate functions such as financial and human resources strategy and services....

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.  

Skills are the link to the successful economies of Europe 2020. The way in which we forecast skills demands, provide access to relevant learning tools and engage Europeans more readily in ongoing workforce development will rapidly impact the job profiles and employment opportunities seen on the European market.

Microsoft has recently launched Imagine Cup Solve This, a new program to provide inspiration for students looking to help solve the world’s toughest problems whilst giving them a platform to narrow their skills gap.

The way we learn is changing. The voices of young people from across the globe are captured in this video, illustrating how they see the transition to a new culture of education empowered by technology.

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...

Many of the jobs in the next two decades simply do not exist today. Regardless of economic sector - retail, automotive, logistics, tourism, manufacturing or telecom- the transformation of industrial processes is upon us! However- are Europeans equipped and in the right skills ‘gear’ for a more digitally driven economy?

The fusing of ICT with business economic delivery models is challenging the future of the IT profession.

Just a few weeks after the launch of the EU flagship initiative Youth on the Move, on 4 October, Microsoft and European Schoolnet hosted a successful EU roundtable on eEducation entitled “ICT – are we doing enough to keep Europeans ahead in education?” in Brussels.

Creativity is at the heart of stimulating innovation and fostering sustainable growth at European level.  When it is combined effectively with new digital technologies it can solve some of today’s greatest global challenges whilst at the same time generating new employment pathways in the region.

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.

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 first ever meeting of the G20 employment ministers  set the tone for a concerted response to the current global employment challenge

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.  

The European Union has singled education and training as one of its priorities with the adoption of the Lisbon Strategy, its overarching program focusing on growth and jobs.

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.

This is an advertorial that we have produced recently with the European Commission in support of the European e-Skills Week (1-5 March 2010).

I strongly believe that innovation is the lifeblood of the 21st century economy. If we just take the way research is done today compared to 15 to 20 years ago we can see a huge difference.

The competitiveness challenge is one which will decide the future of Europe, and given the nature of globalisation, we as a continent need to get further into the business of selling ideas to be able to meet this challenge

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...

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.

An innovative partnership in Portugal that helps unemployed textile workers gain essential ICT skills and jobs is being extended to other industries.