European Parliament president visits Digital Skills Academy
Contribution of tech sector praised in battle against youth unemployment
TechLife | 05 Oct 2012 :
President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz (pictured), has has said the growth of the technology sector represented an opportunity to tackle the problem of youth unemployment in the EU. Schulz made his comments at a showcase event at the Digital Skills Academy.
Based at the Digital Hub in Dublin, the Academy provides courses designed to help people reskill for employment in the digital sector, currently experiencing a shortage of 5,000 candidates this year.
Schulz said: "If there is a will to fight against the misery linked to such unemployment of young people then initiatives like the Digital Skills Academy should be supported. The EU has perhaps the best educated generation the continent ever had, yet has such a high degree of unemployment, and this needs to be tackled."
Products on showcase included a visitor mobile app for the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, Children's Literacy iPad app for Gill & MacMilan and an iPhone Travel application for Telefonica employees across Europe.
Honouring the achievement of the jobseekers in reskilling for employment opportunities in the Irish digital technology sector, Schulz presented European Parliament medals to WebElevate Participant of the Year John Halligan and the WebElevate Team.
WebElevate is a level eight digital technology and digital gaming programme, which retrains jobseekers in in-demand digital technology skills for employment in areas including mobile application development, e-commerce, digital marketing, Web video production, online publishing and the online and mobile game development sectors.
The programme is delivered by Digital Skills Academy, based at the Digital Hub, with Dublin Institute of Technology as the awarding body.
TechCentral Reporters