 Istanbul Summit  68,000 people - Get On-line Day!  Broad engagement in eSkills Week  33 Countries; 25,000 telecentres!!  15 staff exchanges – 20 countries  Our work with you: 28 community skills training projects to reach 5.4m people in 3 years.

EU eSkills Week 2010 BELGIUM: National campaign including employment agencies & NGO Train-the-Trainer events SLOVAKIA: Discussion Forum for Be fIT! Programs ROMANIA: Launching ICT skills portal e-aptitudini.ro Ireland: “Smart Learners” event on Life Long Learning with Gov Minister Netherlands: Women Inclusion Event BULGARIA: MS, Workshop for Civic Initiatives Foundation & 2 Ministries co- present on eSkills AUSTRIA: IT Fitness Launch

“As we sit here in there's no less potential, no less opportunity today to make a fundamental impact in a wide swath of society's issues through the power of information & software, We're excited to have a chance to go work on that." Steve Ballmer, May 2010 Why We (Microsoft) Care :

Challenges… “Europe is suffering from a growing professional ICT skills shortage and could lack the competent practitioners to fill as many as 700,000 IT jobs by 2015” Commissioner Neelie Kroes, May 2010 “Over half of Europeans (250 million) go online every day but 150 million Europeans – some 30% - have never used the internet.” EU Digital Agenda, May 2010 “Within 5 years 90 per cent of jobs will require ICT skills, across all sectors, making skills, training and education in ICT a critical priority for employment and job prospects” IDC Report - Post Crisis: e-Skills are Needed to Drive Europe's Innovation Society. Dec 2009 “Immigrant women clearly identify access to IT as critical to improve their social & economic status in the EU…Immigrant women with no or basic e-skills show higher level of unemployment Immigrant Women, e-Skills & Employability in Europe study. Mar 2010 “Training of people in the workforce must be undertaken….Certification is crucual for ICT professionals”IDC

Skills and talent supply is at the core of the EU 2020 Goals Enhancing Digital literacy, skills & e-inclusion The digital era should be about empowerment and emancipation; background or skills should not be a barrier to accessing this potential... Commissioner Neelie Kroes May 2010

EU Digital Agenda aims to…  Bridge the digital skills gap by promoting greater coordination of ICT skills initiatives at Member State level, especially by proposing digital literacy & competences as a priority of the European Social Fund.  Promote the supply & demand of ICT skills in the labour market by developing tools by 2012 to identify the competences of ICT practitioners & users, so that companies seeking employees with particular ICT skills can easily compare their skills Targets for 5 year plan:  % of citizens should use online services  At least 50% of EU households to shop online  Increase in overall internet usage from 60 to 75%  Half the proportion of people who have never used the internet reduced from 30 to 15%  Fast broadband connections at 30Mb per second for all EU citizens with at least 50% of households at 100Mb

Building strategic alignment to EU and national policies… How does e-skills’ training contribute to reach the goals of the the EU2020 strategy? What are the top priorities for your national governments in the area of education, training and employment? How do they match our programs? How does the government prioritize ICT in education and training? How can we partner with them? What are the investment in ICT training as a response to the current unemployment and to the need for greater competitiveness and inclusion ?

2011 – Climbing Higher…  Digital Agenda  European Year of Volunteering  Impact Framework?  More? What is the unique value you bring as a community? How will you make others feel that? What are you committed to accomplishing together?