1,600 job opportunities since it first opened: Fastweb Digital Academy announces the launch of new courses for young people and SMEs

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Press release 22/03/2018
With #GETDIGITAL, Fastweb relaunches its strategy for digital take-up

Fastweb Digital Academy, the new school for the digital professions, established by Fondazione Cariplo and Fastweb and active at the Cariplo Factory, a hub for digital innovation, has crossed its first finish line.After 1 1/2 years of activity, Fast Web Digital Academy has created 1,600 job opportunities thanks to specific high-level professional training courses, and today it has announced the launch of new courses that will debut at the end of March and will be geared toward young people seeking their first employment, to small and medium sized companies and to women.

With its activities, Fastweb Digital Academy (https://www.fastwebdigital.academy) is demonstrating that its commitment to promote digital skills can effectively contribute to help people to enter or re-enter the labour market, to enhance their résumé by adding specific skills, to start a professional career in the digital world and to establish contacts with companies that operate within a vital and modern context that places innovation at the core of its future growth. In only 18 months, the Academy has issued 1,600 certificates, has organised 86 classes and 40 different courses, all free of charge and attended by young people, ages 20-40, for a total of 3,200 hours of training, in cooperation with its partners  Cefriel, Digital Bros Game Academy, Forge Reply, IAB, MAAD, Oracle Academy, P&B and WeMake.

Today, the Academy is launching new classes, free of charge, reserved to young people, and courses reserved to small-medium sized companies, in Milan and Palermo and soon also in Pescara and Bari.The programme intended for young people is particularly extensive and is ready to start, and will include classes in Personal Branding, Introduction to Java, 3D Modelling for Design, Digital Fashion, Information Security, Game Design for cultural heritage, Digital Marketing and Communication.A special consideration has also been given to the SMEs and their need to fill in the gaps of their digital skills in order to remain competitive in the market through the launch of courses in Digital Marketing & Communication for the B2B and B2C companies, Tools and Logistics of the SEM (Sound and Efficient Management) with Google AdWords and E-Commerce Management.

The Millenial Mentoring course, geared toward women, will start on 27 March and young women, native to the digital world, will be trained to teach women over the age of 40 to use social media to communicate effectively and to promote their presence online.

Fastweb has combined the activities of Fastweb Digital Academy and the new courses with Digital IQ (https://www.digitaliq.it), the self-evaluation test of one's digital skills and aptitudes, designed in cooperation with the University of Bicocca. #GETDIGITAL is in fact the Fastweb strategy aimed at promoting the 360° digital with which all the initiatives promoted by the companies connect. The purpose of this initiative is to disseminate digital expertise and the adoption of digital behaviours by offering to schools, people and small-medium enterprises the tools necessary to assess one's skills as well as professional training courses.

"In a market defined by telecommunication, Fastweb holds a leading role in fibre optic infrastructure investments and continues to demonstrate its full commitment toward reaching the goal of spreading throughout Italy the use of highly performing ultra-wideband technology and 5G connections of the latest generation, of which we are already testing the first installations in some cities" declares Sergio Scalpelli, Head of External and Corporate Relations at Fastweb." However, we also want to actively contribute to ensure that Italy takes an extra step in filling the technological expertise gap that separates it from the rest of Europe. For this reason the dissemination of digital technology is at the core of our strategy and our activities which aim at specialist training within the digital sector and at the measurement of the acquired skills in order to assess if the requirements of today's labour market, in constant development, are being met.

"Undertaking a commitment especially toward people who develop expectations, places a great deal of responsibility on Fondazione Cariplo" stated Giuseppe Guzzetti, Chairman of Fondazione Cariplo. "About one and a half years ago, we set a goal: to give life to a project that could generate 10,000 job opportunities for our young people. We are doing that. The project, launched in partnership with Fastweb at the Cariplo Factory, is an important step to which other partners are also contributing. The initiative of the Digital Academy is effectively demonstrating that the labour market needs people with skills suitable for the new positions linked to the digital world. Undertaking a commitment involving our young people who look at the future with a hope that sometimes turns into disappointment, prompted us to work quickly, because expectations need a fast response".

Established in September 2016, Fastweb Digital Academy was conceived from the awareness of Fastweb and Fondazione Cariplo about the necessity to activate resources and expertise for the creation of future professionals with strong digital skills that are nowadays indispensable for the growth of the country. Fastweb Digital Academy intends to be a bridge to the new digital professions that will be increasingly in high demand in the future. Employment will grow in those countries that are able to invest in digital expertise and will shrink in those that have not adequately acquired it and did not address the transformation of the socio-economic fabric.