11 March 2020, SLIEMA
The Women4IT project funded by the Youth Employment Programme of the EEA and Norway Grants, (2018-2021) aims to increase the employability of young women (15 -29 years) in digital technologies and boost the opportunities female talent brings to economic growth. The project will assess the digital skills of 1000 women in 7 countries, provide digital skills training and personalised career guidance to minimum 700 of them, and reach 10 000 youth by digital career awareness activities.
Halfway through the Women4IT project, lead partner Latvian Information and Communication Technology Association (LIKTA) and Tech.mt organised the Women4IT Validation Workshop in Sliema, Malta. During the event, leading experts in the field of digital skills, education and youth work tested and evaluated the project tools: Women4IT profiling platform, training roadmaps and the employment toolkit.
The experts participating in the event included representatives of the leading e-skills training institution Code Institute; national ICT professional associations: Jobs+ (Malta); and community empowerment organisations – Colectic, CEPIS, EPMA and ALL DIGITAL. National Ministries of Education (Greece, Spain) and organisations like Accenture, IB International and Malta Employers Association committed to providing their feedback through online channels.
The workshop outcomes confirmed that through extensive desk research, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, Women4IT project partners managed to map real needs of both recruiting employers and young women looking for a job. As a result, they have developed an innovative strategy and approach to job acquisition and long-term sustainable employment for young women that are neither in employment nor education or training (NEET).
Consequently, the Women4IT project will focus on building women’s digital skills capacity in eight professional profiles that address the specific skills shortages experienced by employers and are most in-demand in 7 European pilot countries. These are:
• Data Protection Specialist
• Data Analyst
• Digital Media Specialist
• Software Tester
• Graphic Designer
• Junior Web Developer
• Project Coordinator
• Customer Service Representative
The specific profile will be selected based on the result of a self-assessment aptitude and digital literacy test, with personal preference taken into consideration. Moreover, each job profile comes with a tailored training roadmap that aims to facilitate the learning process both for the trainer and the trainee.
Upon the finetuning of the platform and the tools, the piloting of the new Women4IT platform will start in the seven test-bed countries: Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania and Spain in September 2020.
For more information on the project, visit:
Women4IT website
Youth Employment Fund website
