IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

More than half of Hong Kong’s workforce believe that their jobs are under threat from the rapid growth of the digital economy, while over 40% feel that they do not have the right skills to compete in it, a survey has found.

The survey was conducted by tech consultants IDC for Workday, a major provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, and it polled over 1,400 employees from eight Asia-Pacific countries to assess their attitudes towards the digital economy.

Today, the Commission is issuing a call to action to companies, governments, educators, social partners, employment service providers and civil society to join us in a massive effort to "turn the tide". Young Europeans should have the tools to enter digital careers or to create jobs as entrepreneurs.

Both Budden, who works for the Fiji-based Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, and Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission information communication technology adviser Siaosi Sovaleni, said the issue in the Pacific is not just getting technology to people, but people’s ability to make use of it.

It aims to increase IT literacy and encourage Bahrainis to use e-services available on the e-GA's national portal www.bahrain.bh.

The training is being offered free for Bahrainis.

Ein ISPRAT-Forschungsprojekt hat deshalb in Shared Service und D115-Service Centern untersucht, wie sich E-Government auf die Arbeitsebene auswirkt und welche Konsequenzen dies für die Mitarbeiter hat. Denn insbesondere die vernetzten Arbeitsformen der E-Verwaltung bringen Veränderungen mit sich. Damit werden erstmals Grundlagen für die notwendige Neuorientierung der Personalstrategie öffentlicher Verwaltungen wissenschaftlich fundiert erhoben und dargestellt. Auch die Ausbildung des Verwaltungsnachwuchses wird sich an den Erkenntnissen der Studie orientieren müssen. Weiterhin ist die Organisation so zu gestalten, dass Motivation, Sinn und Identifikation mit der Arbeit weiterhin erhalten bleibt. Ein Aspekt, der in technikzentrierten Projekten vielfach vernachlässigt wird.

E-Government macht neue Formen der Arbeitsorganisation erforderlich. Im Rahmen einer Studie hat ISPRAT untersucht, wie sich die Arbeitsorganisation in der Verwaltung durch den IT-Einsatz geändert und welche Konsequenzen dies für die Mitarbeiter hat.

Im Fokus des Projektes, das zusammen mit der Deutschen Hochschule für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer sowie dem E-Government Competence Center (IfG.CC) in Potsdam durchgeführt wurde, stand die Arbeitsebene. Untersuchungsgegenstand waren zwei Shared-Service-Einrichtungen auf Bundesebene sowie D115-Service-Center in zwei Großstädten.

An ICT in schools survey by the European Commission also reveals that the skill levels of teachers when it comes to ICT are still lacking.

The survey found that only one in four nine-year-olds studies at a 'highly digitally-equipped school' – with recent equipment, fast broadband (10Mbps plus) and high 'connectivity' (website, email for students and teachers, local area network, virtual learning environment).

The early signs of this development were already visible a couple of years ago when the economic crisis hit Spain and much of its young hi-tech talent was recruited by companies in Germany, as there was already a skills shortage here for jobs in companies which wanted to move into the digital economy.

According to a report by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), it revealed that some 230 million jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa will require some level of digital skills by 2030.

Forbes also predicts that 85% of jobs that will be available in 2030 haven’t yet been invented, as the work humans do will continually shift due to the fact that most jobs will become obsolete due to the emergence of new ones.

The Government of Sierra Leone wants to use technology to transform Sierra Leone into an innovation nation; in this regard, its Directorate of Science, Technology, and Innovation (DSTI Sierra Leone) has secured a new partnership with the e-Governance Academy of Estonia (eGA). The eGA is a global leader for digital transformation for central and local governments.

DSTI Sierra Leone and eGA have signed a three-year MoU to establish technical collaboration on e-governance for public service delivery and administration in Sierra Leone.

The Information Technology Authority (ITA) awarded the contract for the ‘Government IT Training and Certification (GITTC)’ project to Certiport under which the US firm will train more than 93,000 government employees over a period of about three years at a cost of RO8 million. Certiport will provide learning and certification on the global digital literacy standards of its ‘Internet and Computing Core Certification’ (IC3) curriculum. “This national training project aims at building IT capacities and provide locals with the required IT skills that enable them to face modern challenges,” Mohammed Nasser al Khusaibi, Chairman of ITA and Secretary-general of the Ministry of National Economy, said after signing the agreement with David Saedi, CEO of Certiport. He added that the training scheme would be one of the “main pillars” for the country’s campaign to set up a “knowledge-based Omani society and achieve the strategic national aims of the e-Oman and e-government initiatives.”

Chairing a Panel on Innovative Funding for ICT4D: Human Resource Investments in Attaining the Millennium Development at GAID’s Global Forum on Access and Connectivity and Innovative Funding Mechanism, he pointed out that the digital divide is less about equipment and technology than about content, value and people who are able or unable to access information and knowledge.

Karen Price, CEO e-skills UK said: “e-skills UK welcomes the Prime Minister’s emphasis on the twin trends of globalisation and technological change. We are delighted that the Government has put the need for world class skills and innovation at the heart of its drive to meet the challenges and opportunities of globalisation.

“The cost of the lack of digital skills and incompetence to e-commerce, e-government and productivity in companies is only anecdotally known”, she said, adding that this “has to be recognized.” Without these knowledge, which is “imperative”, Europe is loosing an average of €90,3 billion per year and per country, she explained.

"E-business is a growing field that would require better preparations if the region was to fully exploit the potentials in the e-business sector and the realization of a solid cyber laws regime in the Community will underpin the implementation of the Common Market Protocol especially on the services, an area of great potential for the region," he explained.

• Secondary schools in East Africa were the host sites for a one-year study to understand how Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure and training support could improve education
• In one year, teachers reported significant increase in skill and comfort with using ICT for educational purposes
• Study makes recommendations in key intervention areas for successful, sustainable integration of ICT in schools for the purposes of improved learning outcomes

The European Commission (EC) has expressed concerns that half of the European labour force does not have sufficient ICT skills and has warned that this could lead to an ICT job surplus in the future.

The findings were a result of the EC’s annual Digital Agenda scoreboard, which assessed the progress made on 78 digital agenda actions at European Union and 23 at national level.

Tens of thousands of visitors attended the ‘European Institutions Open Day’, taking place in several official buildings across Brussels. The ECDL Foundation joined forces with the European Commission DG Information Society and Media to stress the role of digital skills in achieving the social and economic inclusion that is needed to kick start a more competitive Europe.

The Education Minister shared this view during a Monday, January 31 press conference organized to update the public on the progress of the government initiative, I-Literacy One-to-One Laptop Project.

Carty explained that it was necessary to educate children at all levels in ICT, in order to ensure the development of a successful economy.