For some time now, Barcelona's technology sector has been sounding an alarm: there is a shortage of professionals to fill all the vacancies that companies are generating. The figures are devastating. Between 2017 and 2019, the demand for digital talent has increased by 80% in the Catalan capital, while the supply has only grown by 23%. In addition, it is estimated that the city could absorb up to 10,000 new ICT jobs each year. These are data from Barcelona Digital Talent, an initiative promoted by Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital) to combat this digital gap. And all this, without taking into account that this sector has been one of the least affected by the pandemic and, in fact, has continued to grow.
Given this scenario, various programs are being launched to remedy it, such as the creation of a programming campus promoted by Fundación Telefónica, the Barcelona City Council, and the Generalitat, with the capacity to train about 600 students, or the increase in technological training offered by IT Academy, Barcelona Activa's free web programming school, which aims to train more than 3,000 people in the next five years. To participate in programs like these, no prior experience or training is required.
But Barcelona Digital Talent wanted to go further. In collaboration with the Generalitat, this MWCapital initiative has designed courses that will target a profile that does not usually receive this type of training from public employment services: professionals with higher education who are unemployed. Such an approach is pioneering at the state level and comes after the Catalan administration realized that people participating in the courses offered by the Public Employment Service of Catalonia (SOC) already had university education and their curriculum was not correctly adapted to their needs.
This training will be free and will be mainly aimed at requalifying unemployed students who want to change professions, but also at improving the skills of those who are currently employed. The skills acquired will be those necessary to start working as a software or mobile application developer and expert in big data, the cloud, or customer relationship management (CRM) processes. The choice of these professions was made after Barcelona Digital Talent analyzed the market and detected which were the most demanded by the sector, but also where there was the greatest shortage of profiles, explains the director of the MWCapital Digital Talent program, Jordi Arrufí.
A total of 18 courses of 300 hours will be taught starting in September at universities and programming academies yet to be determined. This training is expected to reach more than 500 people. Likewise, another gap that this initiative aims to overcome is the gender gap, and it will promote that 40% of the students are women. The cost of the program will be 1.75 million euros, contributed by the Departament de Treball, Afers Socials i Famílies. To ensure that the maximum number of people sign up, MWCapital will create an Office for Future Digital Talent Support to attract students, with a budget of 135,000 euros. The office will also be responsible for helping students find work once they finish their training, organizing speed datings with companies and a job board.
According to the success of this program, the general director of the SOC, Ariadna Rectoret, indicates that they plan to extend this pilot test with more courses on digital training. Until 2023, the Generalitat will also design new training courses for unemployed people with university degrees in sectors such as the green economy, people care, and automotive.
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The impact of events like the Mobile
MWCapital and Barcelona Digital Talent are the result of the desire to ensure that events like the Mobile World Congress (MWC) have an impact on the host city beyond the four days the fair lasts. In addition to the growth that the technology sector has registered since Barcelona became the mobile capital and the profile needs it has generated, another legacy of the MWC is Mobile Week.
This initiative aims to bring what congress attendees see at Mobile to all citizens. Originally, it started in the Catalan capital, but, in its third edition, it will reach 18 municipalities. Badalona, Manresa, Figueres, and La Seu d'Urgell will be some of the new additions.
Mobile Week aims to bring what congress attendees see at Mobile to all citizens, with workshops and conferences that debate technology and its everyday impactFor two weeks, from June 21 to 27 and from July 5 to 11, MWCapital will organize different free activities throughout Catalonia to make technology more accessible, with workshops, conferences and round tables that will combine in-person and hybrid formatsThe topics that will be addressed in this Mobile Week will be the protection of privacy and data on the Internet, the digital professional skills demanded by the market, and the role of technology during crises, clearly marked by the current context and the concerns that have arisen after a year of pandemic.A novelty of this edition will be the celebration of Family Day in several municipalities, a day that allows the little ones to learn about technology by playing and having fun.
Among the scheduled activities, the training for future surgeons with augmented reality that will take place in Badalona stands out; the Patufet 4.0 of Manresa with a robot protagonist created with Lego pieces; the climate conditions simulator of Rupit that will teach how to prepare for the climate changes to come, and the possibility of trying drones in Mollerussa and building and programming robots in La Seu d'Urgell.
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