News

The contracting parties, empirica in co-operation with some of the world’s leading business schools and other stakeholder groups, aim to demonstrate new ways of developing e-leadership skills for SMEs, start-ups and entrepreneurs at different business schools and universities.

The European Commission has launched a service contract to develop a feasibility study for a pan-European foundational body of knowledge for ICT professionals and of a sustainable operating model for the promotion of ICT professionalism in Europe.

The significant growth in highly skilled jobs, such as management, architecture and analytics positions, reinforces the need for what has been termed “e-Leadership skills”, a combination of technical, business and leadership skills and competences.

Stakeholders emphasize the importance of working on opening up the minds of people and making them aware of entrepreneurial opportunities and how to act upon those. It is, however, more needed for their research work.

Several top-level executives from large Italian industry and businesses present at the event (Il Sole 24 Ore, Hewlett Packard, Assintel, Sematic, Don Gnocchi Foundation etc.) strongly argued for an improved supply of e-leadership skills.

Referring to a recent Working Paper from empirica the Commission indicates that demand for digitally skilled employees is growing by around 4% a year and that shortages of ICT professionals in the EU could reach 825,000 unfilled vacancies by 2020 if no decisive action is taken.

Peter Hagedoorn, Secretary General of the Association, believes that the curriculum profiles go a long way to creating a simpler way of navigating through the jungle of executive education programmes that address e-Leadership skills.