eskills challenge for modern society

8/7/2019 eSkills Challenge for Modern Society

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eSkillseSkills

a Challenge for the Modern Societya Challenge for the Modern Society

Prof.Vasile Baltac

President

Council of European Professional Informatics Societies

IADIS Conference Applied Computing

Timisoara, 15 October 2010


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OverviewOverview

Why eSkills are important?

Growing Demand and Challenges

eSkills Gap

IT Professionalism AVision of Professionalism

Possible Standards for Professionalism

eSkills and eInclusion Universities and eSkills

15 October 2010 Prof.Vasile Baltac: e Skills - a Challenge for the Modern Society 2


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eSkillseSkills

Information/KnowledgeSociety needs newskills

Skills ICT Practitioner skills

ICT User skills

E-business User skills

eSkills: 2010 vs. 1950 World Population

2.6 times

ICT Practitioners

4,000 times ICT Users

400,000 times

15 October 2010 Prof.Vasile Baltac: eSkills - a Challenge for the Modern Society 3


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LawLawss RevisitedRevisited

New Laws ? Demand for User Skills doubles every 2 years

Demand for ICT Practitioners Skills doubles every 2 years

Corollaries to Moores Law

Schmidhubers Law: Intervals between successiveradical breakthroughs in computer sciencedecrease exponentially

A new one come twice as fast as the previous one

Moores Law (Integrated circuitry) and the above laws

seem to confirm Schmidhubers Law Acceleration?



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Accelerating FactorsAccelerating Factors

New Technologies:TFT, IncreasingVLSI

Density. Etc.

Internet Growth: Broadband Advances,

Search Engines, eContent Growth Open Source Software

eEducation impact

Impact of on-line

Free Content Availability

Developed for Rich,Available for Poor



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How far? Decelerating FactorsHow far? Decelerating Factors

Limits of Technology?

Complexity Issue

Information Avalanche

Acute Lack ofUtilization ofResources

Software Development Software Slowdowns,

Compatibility Issues,Fatal bugs?

Vulnerability Problems Intellectual Property

Protection

Evolution of Standards:Floppy, CD-ROM, DVD,etc. read in 2030?

Education and TrainingGap

Limits of eBooks Digital Divide

Multilingualism 35% Internet Users are

English Native Speakers

68% Sites in English A Modern Tower of

Babel?

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How far? The Complexity IssueHow far? The Complexity Issue

End of Internet buried by its own weight?

Need for so many IPs interconnected?

Huge data bases are justified?

Is the application side growing at thesame pace as circuitry?

New skills are created at the necessarypace?

The acceleration brings us or not to thedisputed Omega Point?

Prof.Vasile Baltac: eSkil ls - a Challenge for the Modern Society 715 October 2010


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Omega Point?Omega Point? Ray Kurzweil:Singularity is a period of extremely

rapid technological progress that generalizes Moore'sLaw to technologies predating the integrated circuitand that will continue to other technologies not yetinvented

Singularity in 20-140 years? 2012?

Omega Point Piere de Teilhard Chardin 1903 The universe is constantly

developing towards higher levels of material complexity andconsciousness

Frank Tipler 1986 The universe comes to an end at asingularity in a particular form of the Big Crunch, thecomputational capacity of the universe is capable of increasingat a sufficient rate that is accelerating exponentially faster thanthe time running out

Prof.Vasile Baltac: eSkills - a Challenge for the Modern Society 815 October 2010


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Applications: Key ChallengeApplications: Key Challenge

Killer applications

appear at a much

reduced

accelerated speed

Implementation

delayed by creation

of skills

eInclusion

Digital Divide

Digital Competences

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eSkills GapeSkills Gap

ICT User Skills Gap - related to eInclusion ICT Professional Skils - Supply and demand

Europe faces Shortages up to 70,000 ICT practitioners (E-Skills in Europe: Matching

Supply to Demand a CEPIS Report 2008)

Discrepancies - expected to deepen evenmore dramatically

More ICT skills are demanded European Commission "e-Skills for the 21st

Century: Fostering Competitiveness, Growth andJobs".



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ICT Professional eSkills GapICT Professional eSkills Gap

The shortage of ICT skills in Europe caused by EU-internal insufficient supply

Brain-drain to the USA

In times of boom, people will be enthusiasticabout computer qualifications The dot-com boom Preparation for the Y2K bug

In less certain times, people are more reluctant toembark and even move away the dot-com bubble burst in 2000

Booms and crisis - market oversupplied or shortof qualified people



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Professional ICT SProfessional ICT Skills:Agendakills:Agenda

ICT careers to be made more attractive to youngpeople both males and females

A key issue for Europe ~ 0.5% of the European workforce works in ICT

~ 2% of the European Gross Domestic Product.

An ICT job is worth 4 times its value in comparisonwith other businesses.

Lack of ICT professionals means lack of growth

Action: Policy Communication on e-skills for the 21st Century: a

long term e-skills agenda and key action lines for the

European Union. http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/ict-skills.htm

European eSkills Week aimed at ICT Professionals



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European eSkills WeekEuropean eSkills Week

e-Skills Week 2010: 1-5 March 2010

first campaign seeking to inform about the

opportunities that ICT-related jobs present

highlight the growing demand for skilled ICT

users and professionals

35 countries

1,163 events reached 445,225 people, 65

million people touched by the campaign.

e-Skills Week web portal http://eskills-

week.ec.europa.eu and blog



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eSkills IssueseSkills Issues Graduates of various ICT faculties or specializations and their

satisfaction to employers

Reconversion to ICT skills of graduates from non-ICT faculties

Correct ratio among: software programmers, system analysts, system architects,

administrators of data bases, application, services, applications

security experts, etc. Specialties claimed by industry as missing or insufficient covered

in universities telecom network topologies, data base administration, UNIX,

software testing and integration, C++, IT , storage manager, IT assetmanager, information services manager, mobile devices programming,project management.

There are even opinions that the present list of job types in ICTis completely outdated

Practitioners or professionals?



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ProfessionalismProfessionalism

IT Profession vs. IT Professionalism What is Professionalism?

Professional traditionally means a person who has qualified andworks in some professional field



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Professionalism in ITProfessionalism in IT

IT Professional A person who has obtaineda degree or other recognition

in InformationTechnology for the study, design,development, implementation, support or management ofdigital information systems solving stakeholders problems

through the management, manipulation, storage andprocessing of data and information by technological andmethodological means

Clear distinction

IT Professional - all of the common characteristics

IT Practitioner - derive his or her living from thesector and may or may not possess other attributes



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Professionalism in ITProfessionalism in IT IT professionals bring value to employers

The eSkills shortage acts against professionalism

Practitioners are accepted through reconversion at a debatablequality of reconversion from non-IT jobs

Professionalism is enhanced by validation/certification Europe: 5 million IT practitioners: how many certified/validated?

The industry has developed vendor certifications practitioneroriented

Universities keep away from vendor oriented industrycertifications

Ideal if a graduate would have a certification(SMEs)

A validation based more on general professional competence isneeded through internationally recognized frameworks

Benefits of being an IT Professional are yet to be recognized Countries of Europe have different approaches



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Validation/CertificationValidation/Certification

Metaframe eCF - eCompetence Framework/ developedunder the umbrella of EU www.ecompetences.eu Based not on job profiles, but rather on competences

32 competences classified according to 5 main ICT businessareas linked directly to the European QualificationsFramework(EQF).

Tools are essential for implementation quality EUCIP- CEPIS, SFIA - BCS

EUCIP EUCIP Core- introductory level three part ICT professional

certification

EUCIP Professional -21 different job profiles EUCIP IT Administrator, stand-alone certification



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IT Professionalism MatterIT Professionalism Matterss??

Findings of a CEPIS Professionalism Task Force

Quality of Service: Quality is a central defining characteristic of the IT Professional

Mobility of Labour and Services: Professionals may move to seek employment and to offer services

Mobility of labour will reduce potential shortages of IT Professionals

Recognition of Value: Professionals will differentiate themselves from practitioners

Promotion of Innovation: Professionals are in position to drive innovation

A Competitive Advantage for Europe Professionalism can give Europe an advantage in IT services



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eSkills and eInclusioneSkills and eInclusion

Knowledge Society needs eInclusion eInclusion vs. eExclusion (Digital Divide-DD)

DD- Gap between people with effectiveaccess to digital and informationtechnology and those with very limited orno access at all Appropriate ICT Infrastructure

Accessible and Affordable Internet Access

Generalized Ability to Use ICT (eSkills!)

Availability of Useful Content



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22ndnd Digital DivideDigital Divide

In 2010 we still face the1st and developing 2nd

Digital Divide

Broadband Divide (Chart)

End-user skills are

imperative for eInclusion Best practice: ECDL, EC

funded project undertakenby CEPIS

Global authority in leadingcomputer skillscertification(ECDL/ ICDL)

ICT infrastructureinvestments need skills



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Universities and ICT SkillsUniversities and ICT Skills

University Business Cooperation CEPIS Report (www.cepis.org )

Recognized role of Higher Education Institutions

Better position in world rankings for European HEI tocompete globally

Foster entrepreneurship-SMEs Adapting curricula to market needs

Universities are asked to update annually their ICT curricula.

Is this feasible and/or beneficial?

What is the impact of the Bologna process in ICT?

Lifelong learning Mobility industry HEI

Generalized IT user skills at pre-university level



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CEPISCEPIS

CEPIS Council of European Professional InformaticsSocieties Represents informatics professionals from 33 countries

throughout greater Europe

Over350,000 IT professionals enrolled in 36 MemberAssociations

Committed to: Promote the views and needs of IT professionals

Promote the development of the Information Society through:

Digital literacy

Skills Professionalism

Education and research



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CEPISCEPIS

CEPIS UPGRADE Journal for Informatics Professionals, electronic

bimonthly in Englishhttp://www.cepis.org/upgrade

Promotion of end user skills and

certification through ECDL Foundation Collaboration with Commission on

eInclusion year Support of i2010 strategy

Leader in the implementation of the DigitalAgenda for Europe



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International Reach of the ECDL Foundation

Programme

148 Countries

36 Million Tests

41 Languages

24,000Test Centres

10 Million Candidates


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ConclusionConclusion

eSkills are a Challenge of the Beginning of the

21st

CenturyThey are needed for Building a Competitive and eInclusive

Europe



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Thank you!

Mulumesc!


eskills challenge for modern society

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