BACKGROUND Rapid technological change means we face a very real digital competence gap in the coming years—a period in which technological capabilities accelerate so swiftly that talent and knowledge can’t keep up. The competence gap will create friction, slowing realization of the benefits of digital transformation. Almost all EU countries are introducing schemes, offers, services aimed at reducing the competence gap but despite the EU goal of creating a common Digital Single Market, most of them are not connected, don’t know each other or have never thought about establishing any kind of cooperation scheme. OBJECTIVE The DITA project wants to strengthen transnational cooperation among synergic training organizations and increase the mobility opportunities of trainees in the European digital industry scene by a) providing a transparent and useful overview of available training opportunities in the field of Digital Transformation, b) supporting trainees in identifying which available training opportunities may best fit to their needs and expectations, c) establishing permanent cooperation schemes among the identified training, programs and facilities, d) delivering and permanently maintaining an open but supervised tool (The Digital Industry Training Atlas) that will collect, connect and display synergic available training opportunities in Europe on digital transformation. TARGET GROUPS The project has 2 main target groups: 1) it responds to the needs of todays and tomorrows professionals or graduates working for (or being potential candidates to work for) European small and medium sized enterprises, specifically the project addresses the needs of current or future managers and staff of almost all operational departments of a typical European SME; 2) vocational training organizations that would highly benefit from connecting to complementary organizations in their country as well as in other countries. The project will involve at least 100 end users (learners) during the teat phase and 160 during multiplier events plus 110 training organizations. NEEDS ADDRESSED Under this perspective the project allows a) learners to 1) have full and transparent access to available training paths in the field of digital transformation; 2) be facilitated and supported in identifying and choosing the most appropriate training path that would increase their competences and skills in the field of digital transformation; b) training organizations to increase the quality of their training offer by establishing international formal connections with complementary training organizations. EXPECTED RESULTS The project’s expected results are to increase: 1) the general awareness level of the current and future European workforce about available training opportunities in the field of Digital Transformation; 2) the understanding of potential synergies among the identified training opportunities in the field of Digital Transformation; 3) learners’ mobility throughout Europe to benefit from the different and complementary offer of training programs in the field of Digital Transformation; 4) the internationalization strategies of life-long learning training organizations in the field of Digital Transformation. INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS 7 synergic and complementary project partners from 6 EU countries (IT, AT, DE, BE, PT and ES) representing the most relevant running European Industry 4.0 initiatives will cooperate to achieve these results by delivering 4 synergic IOs, namely 1) Digital Transformation & Competences in Europe: Available Training Facilities & Approaches; 2) Digital Transformation & Competences in Europe: Industry Relevant Training Case Studies and ideal synergies; 3) The Interactive EU Map of Digital Transformation Training Providers; 4) Cooperation Framework for a common Digital Transformation Training Arena. LONG TERM BENEFIT At the end of the project an interactive EU Map of available training options and their potential interconnections will be available for European exploitation via the Training Atlas. A long-term action plan, describing strategy and concrete action lines until the end of 2024, and concrete synergies with EU digitalization-oriented initiatives will guarantee its availability after the end of the project. European Learners and Training Organizations will benefit from it as well as all those programs and action lines foreseen and anchored to the Digital Single Market initiative..
Through DITA, our partnership aimed at strengthening transnational cooperation among synergic training organizations focused on industry relevant digital domains and - subsequently - increase the available training opportunities to trainees in the European digital industry scene. To achieve this objective, 4 specific objectives have been pursued: 1) identify the current available European training offer in the field of digital transformation and smart industry and classify it according to the most relevant industry related digital technology domains; 2) understand the "end user" perspective, namely which digital priorities, industries and application fields are suffering most from digital skills gaps and which curricula are required by European SMEs 3) innovate how training organizations should respond to digital re and upskilling by establishing permanent cooperation schemes among identified training organizations and programs; 4) deliver and maintain an open, flexible and supervised tool (the Digital Training Atlas) that will collect, connect and display available synergic training opportunities in Europe on digital transformation (and syneric topic in the future).
The digital competence gaps of the European workforce is high while digital transformation is affecting almost any business area of European SMEs. The lack of adequate professional profiles and the difficulties in finding appropriate training programs to increase the digital readiness of European workforce need to be tackled. Additionally, the speed rate of digital innovation puts pressure also on training organizations that cannot address all knowledge fields by themselves any longer. To make it simple, the needs that DITA has addressed can be summarized into: 1) Learners' (especially EU workforce) needs: have (and accelerate) access to qualitative and synergic training opportunities on digital transformation and be facilitated/supported in identifying the most appropriate ones in terms of initial requirements, language used, channels adopted (on site or online), certifications and location . 2) Training Organizations needs: increase the quality of the training offer by establishing international formal connections with complementary training organizations. This connections should help training providers to expand their training offer by adding specific and complementary modules provided by other training organizations.