“Bridging the Digital Talent Gap” Report Launched

Informatics Europe and the European Commission DG CONNECT's report on Bridging the Digital Talent Gap has been launched. The report provides recommendations in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security and Software Engineering.

On October 30th 2019, Informatics Europe in partnership with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) organised the workshop “Bridging the Digital Talent Gap – Towards Successful Industry-University Partnerships”.

The event brought together higher education organisations, industry and public policy makers to reflect and act on the problem of the Digital Talent Gap in Europe. The workshop was intended to debate and propose concrete solutions on possible ways of increasing the specialised educational offer in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security and Software Engineering.

How to Bridge the Digital Talent Gap

The main goal of the workshop was to bring together Academia, Industry and Policy for an open dialogue in the search of solutions for the widespread problem of the digital talent gap in Europe.

Recommendations for Artificial Intelligence:

  • Universities need to develop more specific master courses in the area.
  • Universities need to develop curricula that are accessible to students without a specialized Informatics background (to support the creation of basic expertise in Artificial Intelligence also for experts in other disciplines).
  • Universities need to include in the Artificial Intelligence curricula contents that specifically address ethical and societal issues.
  • The education system needs to be more productive, insisting more on the increase of the number of skilled graduates in Artificial Intelligence, also including PhDs, which seems a rather viable solution to give EU small companies better chances to recruit talented Artificial Intelligence experts.
  • More effective collaboration between Academia and Industry should exist at the stage of design and shaping of new curricula, also as part of “National strategies for Artificial Intelligence”, which must give priority to actions that support this collaboration.
  • The creation of an EU institute for AI, as a permanent structure, that can support the development of EU tools and platforms for research and development in AI. This institute would favour aggregation of researchers, support the dissemination of EU tools in third-level education and provide companies with a technically competitive basis to develop AI-based solutions.

More information and download the report.

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