ENHANCING THE DEMAND-DRIVEN YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN IT SECTORS Erasmus Project

Project Title

ENHANCING THE DEMAND-DRIVEN YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN IT SECTORS

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

If Turkey and EU is to attract and recruit competitive advantage, innovative and high-tech indigenous IT sectors (data analysing,software design,data tracking etc.) and properly transition into a digital world, youth (as age 18-25 and being digital natives) are great resources that would otherwise fit excellently the IT mindset, skills and attitude needed, based on the environment they have grown up where they are users and consumers of digital media, highly connected in a world of social media, adaptable to constant technological changes and so on. They would play crucial roles in changing the equilibrium skewed towards IT human capital attainment which need is directly related to EU 2020 strategies for smart and sustainable economy and EU Digital Action Plan (2019).

The objectives are;
-Developing innovative cooperation processes and methodologies (IO1) among youth and IT business sectors by investigating effective, innovative and sectoral national and international cooperation methodologies (ex. qualification recognition, assessment/evaluation of skills, working conditions, development of communication, teamwork etc.)

-Collaborating with diverse sectors of IT business industry to cooperate on recruiting youth IT experts in their workforce, aligning youth’s skills and knowledge with IT business industry’s real, current and future needs,

-Investing on the benefits that youth can bring into IT business industry including new knowledge, perspectives, fresh ideas, business models, personal skills via creation of IO2 (non-formal and work-based employment trial program) by facilitating built-in, real-life and work-based industrial placements LTT trainings for youth.

-Creation of an online skill validation platform (IO3) to enable youth and IT businesses to have various interventions to better assess/evaluate/validate IT skills and act further on preparing themselves for the IT employment opportunities.

-Providing non-formal, unstructured and inter-cultural learning and interaction opportunities through the creation of synergies among youth and IT business actors via workshops, discussions, study visits, field trips, group activities,case work,seminars where youth will have the opportunity to discover, analyse and understand values and their implications and build a set of values to guide their lives/careers.

The main target groups are youth (age 18-25,mainly undergraduates and unemployed graduates) who are in IT and related areas, youth workers, youth organisations, IT business industries, IT business industries’ personnel including employee representatives, managers, consultants, various stakeholders, local, regional business and youth authorities and public/private employment services.

The participants are around 90 youth, 23 youth workers and 14 IT business staff/experts who will take part in the following activities;
-Creation of IO1; innovative cooperation processes and methodologies among youth and IT business sectors,
-Creation of IO2; non-formal and work-based employment trial program,
-Creation of IO3; online skill validation platform,

-training 118 people in 5 LTTs,

-3 transnational project meetings,

-conducting workshops in each partnering country,

-a final conference,

-extensive dissemination activities.

The used methodology is mixed method which consists of qualitative (interviews, observations) and quantitative (questionnaires and surveys) methodologies along with employing data collection analyzing methods based on each intellectual output.

The results and impacts include;

Non-formal, unstructured, work-based and inter-cultural learning and interaction opportunities through the creation of synergies among youth and IT business actors where youth will have the opportunity to discover, analyse and understand skills and their implications, build a set of values to guide their lives/careers, explore current and future available employment and career opportunities, develop their entrepreneurial skills and presenting their qualifications in commercial ways for recruitment, explore and learn how to better develop innovative cooperation methodologies with IT businesses, learn how to recruit young IT staff in a more professional (via IO3, validation tools) and in more experimental (via IO2, pilot program) formats.

IT Businesses, youth workers and various stakeholders will improve their knowledge and experiences in employing IT skilled youth in their workforces, benefits that IT skilled youth would bring into businesses such as new ideas, methods, perspectives, abilities to solve various problems and many more.

Regarding to the longer term impacts, we expect many youth and youth organizations to develop mutual and close relationships with IT businesses which may open many new doors for them for employment, developing new business ideas, collaborations, cooperation and many more impacts are foreseen.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 206830 Eur

Project Coordinator

Karamanoglu Mehmetbey University & Country: TR

Project Partners

• INSTITUTE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT
• Karaman Teknoloji Geliştirme Bölgesi Yönetici A.Ş.
• VisMedNet Association
• Learning and Innovation Academy of Finland Oy
• Polygonal