As youth unemployment continues to rise across Europe, today’s students are more pressured than ever before to make the most of their education and prepare themselves for the jobs of the future.

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.

Certification, as an industry-recognised validation of skills, is a proven differentiator — whether the individual is a seasoned professional looking to demonstrate his or her value to the organisation or someone hoping to break into the industry for the first time.

The IT industry in many EU countries still faces the problem of a lack of IT workforce and IT skills.

We are constantly hearing that the labour market is changing with new kinds of jobs needing new sets of skills.

Kiel University of Applied Sciences, founded in 1969 in northern Germany, has six faculties and 5,600 students. It has a reputation for innovative degree courses with intensive modularized learning in small groups, and is known to tailor their curriculum to meet industry needs.

Last month I revealed the recent outcomes of the white paper “Cloud Computing in Turkey: Players, Policies, Challenges and Opportunities” at a Cloud Computing conference hosted in Turkey.

Cloud Computing: What IT Professionals Need to Know. Curiosity has been sparked as to what the emerging roles and skill sets IT professionals and Developers should look to acquire as we transition to the cloud! Microsoft Learning has released a paper that takes an early look at just that!

Cloud computing has all the ingredients of a true revolution in the way business, governments and individuals handle information.

Mapping the route ahead for cloud computing, specifically looking at the human capital investment needed to bridge the transition and the question of organizational infrastructure, was recently made relevant to both Italian and EU-level institutions as well as stakeholders at the European Parliament in Rome.

E-skills are no longer required only for those who work in IT departments, but for everyone participating in a digitized economy. The new economy is a digital economy. It's notable that many of the goals and metrics outlined in the European Commission's new Digital Agenda – public Internet use, availability of government services over the Internet, broadband adoption among disadvantaged groups...

Paving the way for new digital technologies such as the transition to the cloud requires a parallel investment in human capital.

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. 

In this case study, you can read about how the European University Institute (EUI) overcame limitations in storage space of its previous email system with cloud computing, achieving 100 times more storage and 43% in cost savings. The European University Institute (EUI) was set up in 1972 by the six founding Member States of the European Communities to provide advanced academic training to...

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

In Europe we have education placed high on the political agenda, indeed the first single EU-level strategy embracing both education and employment ‘Youth on the Move’ has recently been launched as a key facet of the Europe 2020 agenda!

Can Europe use cloud computing to stimulate economic growth?  If so, what skills will be needed to make most advantage of this technology trend? 

If you missed the chance to read Professor Jonathan Liebenau’s great post of skills and cloud computing, I strongly recommend you finding 10 minutes to watch his webinar on how skilled (or not) the European work force will be to embrace cloud computing

It takes some new thinking to be able to benefit from cloud services.  As much as service providers might offer “seamless”, “trouble-free”, or “integrated” cloud services, customers need to have the insights to position themselves as capable users.   

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

We were at the Go digITal event during eSkills week earlier March and spoke to a number of ICT students present.

The pace of change and development in education has picked up substantially in recent years – largely because of the key role ICT is increasingly playing in both teaching and learning. 

We can no longer afford to discard skills and human capital if we want to meet the challenges of a knowledge-based society and to maintain European competitiveness, employment, and social inclusion.

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.

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.

Have a look at this interview with Jean Philippe Courtois produced by the INSEAD eLab, following the publication of a report by the European Business Summit and INSEAD proposing a Skills Pact for Europe.