What we do now will determine what kind of future we have, and even whether we have a future at all. Unless we are able to release our collective energy once and for all, I am afraid we will be doomed. That is why the recent talent summit in Helsinki was so topical and important.
Just a generation ago, when our lives were less complicated, UC Berkeley economist Michael Goldhaber worried about the impact of the attention economy, where, for the first time in history, society, thanks to technology, was drowning in an ocean of data overload. Today, thanks to information and communication technology (ICT) and artificial intelligence, we have taken it to the next level of data mining and massaging of huge data warehouses. Today, the old saying “knowledge is power” has never been so true or more meaningful.
Whether we can meet the challenge or not, is ‘known unknown’, but ‘known known’ is that in order for us to be able to do so, a whole-of-society approach is needed. Like a well-known Spanish philosopher Jose Ortegay Gasset said a hundred years ago, “Nations are born and live according to the plan of the future.”
Recently, last June, the OECD Policy Report Laura Kreiling and Caroline Paunov points the way forward. They advocate the co-creation of 21st century knowledge, a joint partnership between industry, research and civil society, including government, to produce innovation that can lead to societal transitions into a more sustainable, inclusive and sustainable future.
Such partnerships do exist and are bearing fruit, but more is needed. The European Union has a number of high-budget initiatives that promote co-creation, such as the EU’s Digital Compass 2030 and its Digital Decade program.
As part of these efforts, the 2021 Digital Decade plan is designed to address the critical shortage of ICT professionals in Europe. The aim is to equip 80% of the EU population with basic digital skills so that they can add 20 million ICT professionals across the EU. 2030 while closing the huge digital divide between men and women. This is an urgent task, as the November 2021 Digital Economy and Society Index showed that few EU countries have made progress towards the digital skills target, while in others basic digital skills are still regrettably insufficient.
Several private sector companies are also aggressively pursuing the same goals, together with the European Commission, universities and other stakeholders. These include Allianz, Huawei, Nestle and SAP.
And it brings us back to the Huawei-sponsored Helsinki Talent Summit, which was attended by more than 80 students and entrepreneurs, as well as representatives of startups, NGOs, consultants and universities across Europe. The seminar focused on addressing these future challenges, including the lack of digital skills, the lack of ICT Talent, equality and sustainable development.
I was especially moved by the dynamism and passion of the opening speaker, a Finnish MEP Sirpa Pietikainen who set the tone by saying that “the future is determined by people who want to overcome obstacles and people who create bold and bold innovations”. It reminded me of a quote from a visionary in the Austrian leadership, Peter Drucker, who famously said that “the best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Pietikainen, MEP, spoke directly to the female participants that “girls and young women, you are needed. The whole world of electronics and digitalisation is very male-dominated. This one-sided participation does not serve everyone”.
Some of the participants had done just that, including Yesika Aguilera, A spokesman for Forbes 30’s under-30s, founder of the Tespack & Clocky App, said: “I’m really excited to see companies like Huawei try to get start-ups and young people involved and give them a positive impact and be part of the agility of start-ups and young people. and new prospects for innovation go hand in hand with the experience, capital and know-how of large companies. “
The female entrepreneur in the series later confirmed the MEP’s comments Kuu Jérin, one of Vlinder’s founders and director of marketing at Vow Currency, said, “More women aren’t going high-tech because the road to the top varies from challenging to impossible. If they come into a male-dominated industry, most qualified women are now demanding proven records, not promises. we are tackling this problem by eliminating a toxic culture, not just an imbalance in talent. “
Huawei’s efforts to lead by example are a testament to how corporate social responsibility is driving change in the 21st century. To highlight the imbalance between men and women and give women equal opportunities to succeed, the company created its Women’s Developer program to help women make better use of their talents and provide opportunities to demonstrate their leadership skills. Such programs promote an environment in which, as Yale Professor of Technology Dr. Anissa Ramirez once pointed out, “creativity, the secret sauce of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, is fostered.”
A gender-neutral environment is just one goal. Over the past decade, Huawei has trained more than 30,000 ICT professionals in Europe through programs such as Seeds for the Future, and over the next five years, it will invest approximately € 35 million in building local capacity, benefiting half a million people.
One of Helsinki’s “seeds” was a 22-year-old Ukrainian student entrepreneur Denys Kurylov who worked on the Tech4Good project, Ukraine Green, which addresses the challenges of waste management that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals and help Ukrainians sort waste in an environmentally friendly way.
He said that thanks to the program, he “realized that even students can make an impact and are more than capable of creating awesome projects with the support of technology companies.” Inspired by this fact, he and his Ukrainian team are currently preparing for Huawei’s global start-up competition to find investors. “This program helped me develop leadership and collaboration skills with people from diverse backgrounds. Not only are I now more familiar with building business models, I have met many great people. This has allowed me to understand which area I want to develop further.”
The choice of Helsinki in December had nothing to do with Santa, but was a nod to Finland’s high level of achievement in this field. In terms of human capital in digital skills, the Nordic countries ranked first among EU countries in the DESI index. Its share of ICT graduates is almost double the EU average, and almost twice the number of Finnish companies offers ICT training.
According to Roshi Nadar, an Indian female entrepreneur, a billionaire “you have to have high hopes to make a difference”. Everything at the Helsinki Talent Summit seemed to accurately reflect his observation.
Dr. Harvey Zodin |
After an excellent career in the U.S. government and the American media, Dr. Harvey Dzodin is now a freelance columnist in Beijing for several media outlets. While living in Beijing, he has published more than 200 columns emphasizing arts, culture, and the Belt & Road initiative. He is also a sought-after speaker and advisor in China and abroad.
He currently serves as a foreign researcher at the China-Globalization Incubator Center and as an advisor to the National Imaging Center at Tsinghua University, which specializes in urban brands. Dr. Dzodin was politically appointed by President Jimmy Carter and served as an attorney for the Presidential Commission. After being appointed by the White House and the U.S. State Department, he served in the United Nations Office in Vienna, Austria. He was the director and vice president of ABC Television in New York for more than two decades.
Source: The Nordic Page