UPC and Fast Track to IT (FIT) have joined forces to promote the importance of digital skills and encourage everyone to get online during Get Online Week which is running this week. The initiative started on Monday and will run until Sunday, March 29th.

Most of the week's activities will be locally run in community centres, telecentres, learning hubs, public libraries, schools and universities, and will be organized by FIT.

39% or about 4 in every 10 workers across the EU do not have necessary digital skills according to a European Commission Scoreboard report on Digital Inclusion and Skills. The figure is about 15% in Ireland, ranking us behind the Nordic countries and our EU neighbours the UK, Germany and France.

1 in every 5 Europeans are still offline and do not use the Internet at all. Ireland ranks well at 15th and slightly ahead of the EU28 average with a weekly Internet usage by over 70% of our population. By comparison to Ireland, the UK ranks 8th, Germany 10th, France 13th. The highest rates of weekly internet use are found in the Nordic countries, Luxemburg and the Netherlands, where rates are around 90% or more.

Peter Davitt, CEO at Fast Track to IT (FIT) said, "People with digital skills are essential for Ireland’s competitiveness. Improving digital skills is a key instrument in our fight against unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. While there are five million unemployed young people in the EU, 38,800 in Ireland, there will be up to 900,000 unfilled ICT vacancies across Europe in two years' time. 

The solution is obvious. We need to encourage more young people to take up ICT training and this is being strongly encouraged by FIT and UPC.

For Get Online Week 2015, we have developed an introduction to e-participation tools resource for communities so that new audiences can find out how to participate actively in the week's events through our mentorship programmes and digital workshops."

For more visit: www.businessworld.ie