Newsletter Issue 2, 2011
Theme: IT events in Stockholm
Newsletter Issue 2, 2011
In this issue:
- Stockholm IT Region’s student project on IT careers now part of national effort
- Did you know…
- Largest career fair for high school students
- 3 Questions for Sascha Haselmayer
- Subscribe to the newsletter
Stockholm IT Region’s student project on IT careers now part of national effort
At Future Friday, Swedish IT & Telecom Industries launched a new version of www.valjit.se, a career site for inspiring and guiding young people to choose IT education programs and professions. Before the re-launch, the branch and employer association enlisted the aid of high school students to create an even more relevant site for rousing young people’s interest in IT.
In the fall of 2010 and spring of 2011, students from Thorildsplans High School worked with the branch and employer association IT & Telecom Industries to get more young people to apply to IT programs and choose a career in the IT field—an area that includes the IT sector itself as well as general commerce and the public sector.
“The industry is crying out for skilled IT professionals,” says Anne-Marie Fransson, national director of IT & Telecom Industries. “Both bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees are in great demand. We hope that the re-launched site, including the residual presence on Facebook, etc., will capture the interest of young people and get them curious about a career in IT. It’s fun working in our industry and the possibilities are virtually endless.”
The project aimed to develop an updated site for and by the target audience and to re-launch it before potential students chose their college or university in April. Students from Kärrtorps High School and Berzelius School in Linköping also helped with the project.
The goal of the site is to get at least two applicants per university seat and that an average of at least 40% of the applicants are women.
To reach the target audience and propel traffic to the site, the students worked with various types of activities and channels. The biggest components are integration with Facebook, IT game “Jump-IT”, a profession quiz, and opportunities to discuss the IT profession and how to move on to advanced studies.
The project also involved numerous representatives from various colleges and companies, from within and outside the IT industry.
In 2009, Stockholm IT Region started the local project Campus ICT, in which students from Thorhildsplans High School got a school assignment to create an internet-based platform for discussing IT education and careers, according to Mattias Durnik, project director for Stockholm IT Region.
“We ran it as a pilot project with a view to scaling it up after testing it and coming up with good procedures,” says Durnik. “So it was natural to seek a partnership with IT & Telecom Industries that can manage and develop the pilot project on a national level.”
- Did you know…
- … in five years, the number of employees in the telecom and data communication services sub-sector increased by 8,000 persons or 30 percent.
- … all sub-sectors have increased their sales during the last five years. Even during the financial crisis from 2008 to 2009, the IT industry’s total sales increased just over 3 percent.
- … 168,000 persons were employed in the IT industry in 2009.
http://www.itstatistik.se is a website developed by IT & Telecom Industries with industry statistics from 2005 onwards. The site aims to increase understanding of how important the IT and telecommunications industry is to our society, now and in the future.
Future Friday – Largest career fair for high school students
Future Friday is Sweden’s largest career fair targeted at high school students with the aim of showing them their options if they choose an education and job in the IT industry. Future Friday works as an open house where Stockholm University and the Royal Institute of Technology invite high schools to Campus Kista.
The aim is to inspire more high school students to discover the possibilities of IT and to increase recruitment statistics to the Institute and Stockholm University’s Department of Computer and Systems Sciences in Kista. So far, the Institute has shown a steady increase in applicants since the inception of Future Friday in 2008. One reason is that the Institute offers high school students a head start by offering them the opportunity to study university courses during high school that give college credit. So far, about 50 high school students have taken up this offer.
“Over the past four years we’ve had about 4,000 high school students attending and 50 participating companies,” says Jessica Skantze, education project manager at Kista Science City. “Future Friday 2011, which took place on march 11, was attended by about 1,400 high school students who attended 38 unique lectures, 20 hours of workshops, and an exciting education and business fair with 20 exhibitors.”
Next year’s Future Friday is on March 9, 2012. Read more about the event here! (In swedish)
Director of Living Labs Global 1. What is the Stockholm Summit on Service Innovation in Cities & Living Labs Global Award 2011? Companies face a challenging entering the market to turn cities into smart, IT enabled communities. With 557,000 local governments in the world it is hard to understand who needs what, how decisions are taken, and what opportunities emerge. The Stockholm Summit on Service Innovation in Cities celebration the conclusion of a process in which eight global cities (Barcelona, Cape Town, Eindhoven, Lagos, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Stockholm and Taipei) have presented their urban challenges to the world, inviting companies and research centres to present their latest solutions. These themes – including Intelligent Transport Solutions, Smart Urban Living, Automated Urban Services, Financing Urban Innovation and secure Media Distribution – represent areas in which cities see the biggest return on IT and organizational investments in the coming years. What is special about our process is that cities are learning systematically what kind of approaches, business models and technical solutions exist to their problems – before taking procurement decisions. Winners of the Award will be invited by the cities to pilot their solutions in real life to jointly evaluate solutions before starting procurement. At the Summit, companies will have a possibility to network with 150 international city and business leaders like the CEO of Barcelona’s 22@ Innovation District; the CEO of Development in Cape Town; the Chairman of Farglory, the leading Urban Development Group in Taiwan / China; the City Manager of Lavasa, a new low-carbon community in India; very senior executives from Oracle and many others that will shape the market for more than 50% of the world’s population. 2. Why was Stockholm chosen as the place for the event? We are convinced that Stockholm is an exceptional Showcase for how innovative services can transform a city. Stockholm has been a pioneer in carbon reduction before climate change was on every city’s agenda; Stockholm is pioneering intelligent transport and accessibility; and Stockholm is investing to make its government more effective using IT. Behind this performance, which has been more consistent than most other cities in the world, we see a rich eco-system of IT businesses, clean-tech companies and technology, demanding citizens and well-informed decision-makers. 3. What do you want to achieve with the event? For us, success is what comes after. We want cities to be inspired by Stockholm and the innovative businesses that make your city such an excellent example. Few deals will be signed at the Summit, but Stockholm’s eco-system of providers, researchers and innovators should be well exposed in our community of 450 companies and 40 cities. Our objective is to create business opportunities and put technology and solution providers from Stockholm on the map together with about 50 international companies. The format is a networking event, with 3 hours of presentations and 6 hours of networking activities like workshops, exhibitions and working lunch. The events take place May 12th. For more information about Living Labs Global Award 2011 and Stockholm Summit on Service Innovation in Cities click here! 
Sascha Haselmayer
