News Summary:
- This 10-year goal for the EMEA region is part of Cisco's global
commitment to empower 25 million people with digital skills for
long-term inclusion and economic resilience.
- New partnership with Randstad, a global HR services company,
aims to re-skill and upskill 300,000 people.
- Founded in 1997, Cisco Networking Academy is celebrating its
25th anniversary with 17.5 million students trained and continues
to be one of the longest-standing IT skills-to-jobs programs in the
world.
AMSTERDAM, Feb. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- CISCO LIVE
-- Today, Cisco announced its goal to train 10 million people
in digital and cybersecurity skills, over the next 10 years, across
Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).
The number of people to be trained is part of Cisco's 10-year
ambition to empower 25 million people with digital skills worldwide
through Cisco's Networking Academy. This flagship program is
celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and, so far, has reached
17.5 million students across 190 countries. Since starting
operations in EMEA, it has spread to 120 countries in the region
and trained over 6.3 million students, through 5,800 partnerships,
with educational institutions and organizations offering Networking
Academy courses.
The future of innovation, growth, and global competitiveness
depends on building a strong digital economy which in turn is
dependent upon a digitally skilled workforce (or something like).
According to the World Economic Forum, by 2025, advances in
technology and automation will eliminate 85 million jobs while
creating 97 million new jobs globally. Cisco aspires to equip
millions of people around the world with the technical and digital
skills required for these new jobs by empowering the workforce of
the future through the Networking Academy.
"We need a global workforce equipped with digital skills to
develop sustainable and secure businesses, and more equitable
societies. Building a local pool of next-generation talent is
critical to long-term social inclusion and economic resilience,"
said Guy Diedrich, SVP and Chief
Innovation Officer, Cisco. "It takes an entire ecosystem working
together to achieve this. Through Cisco Networking Academy
partnering with local organisations, we have impacted the lives of
17.5 million students over the past 25 years."
"Digital skills are in short supply across the Europe, Middle
East, and Africa region,
which should be a cause for concern for all of us," commented
Wendy Mars, President of Cisco EMEA.
"Without access to a strong talent pool, it will be harder to
continue the digital transformation at pace. I'm proud of the
achievements of the Cisco Networking Academy to date and look
forward to welcoming many more skilled people from diverse
backgrounds to the industry."
To this end, Cisco is launching a partnership with Randstad, a
global leader in the HR services industry, to help talent develop
their digital skills, preparing them to navigate the rapidly
digitizing labour market. Cisco and Randstad aim to re-skill and
upskill 300,000 people in cybersecurity, programming and
infrastructure automation. The partnership is currently running in
The Netherlands and Italy with more countries to follow through
2023.
Chris Heutink, Randstad's COO
commented: "We are very proud to partner with Cisco to equip the
talent of tomorrow with the skills they need to succeed in a
fast-changing world of work. Through partnerships such as this one
we are supporting talent to turn the skills they gained into
opportunities, by combining skilling with access to the labour
market."
Notes to the editor
Cisco Networking Academy – 25 years training the workforce of
the future
Cisco Networking Academy is one of the world's longest running
skills-to-jobs programs, offering tech education through strong
public-private partnerships, a high-quality curriculum, and
inclusive workforce development programs.
In partnership with educational institutions, government
leadership, and community-based organizations around the world,
Cisco Networking Academy leverages Cisco's industry expertise to
deliver a cloud-based curriculum and tools, focused on information
and communication technologies shaping the future — such as
security, networking, collaboration, and Internet of Things (IoT).
Courses are designed to equip learners with the skills required by
industry, using gamification, assessments, and problem-solving to
support learner success.
Supporting a continuum of learning, from curiosity to careers,
courses align to industry-recognized certifications and prepare
learners with transferable, vendor-neutral, job-ready skills. Over
the years, 94% of students surveyed in EMEA who took Cisco
certification-aligned courses, obtained a job and/or educational
opportunity.
Cisco Networking Academy has a long history of promoting
diversity in the tech field and providing learning opportunities to
students of all backgrounds.
Meaningful impact through improved access with learner
centric platform
The Cisco Networking Academy has built a new Skills For All
platform to ensure best in class content is accessible to as many
learners as possible.
Highlights of the new platform include:
- A learner-centric platform to allow learners anywhere, anytime
to begin their upskilling journey, whether the goal is basic skill
acquisition or the beginning of a learning journey ending in
certification and job-readiness.
- The platform is user friendly and accessible, allowing learners
the flexibility to ensure that schedules and constraints, linked to
everyday challenges, are not a barrier to digital
upskilling.
- Delivering meaningful impact has always been part of Cisco
Networking Academy's vision. That means ensuring that underserved
and underprivileged populations are provided with opportunities to
partake in learning pathways that could transform their
lives.
European Year of Skills
By 2030, the EU aims to equip at least 80 percent of its
citizens with basic digital skills and have at least 20 million
information and communications technology (ICT) specialists
employed. Currently, only 54 percent of Europeans aged between 16
and 74 have basic digital skills.
Cisco's announcement comes as the Union kicks off its European
Year of Skills, announced by President Ursula von der Leyen in her latest State of the
Union address. In the European Union, Cisco will aim to train 2.6
million people in digital and cybersecurity skills, over the next
10 years, through the Networking Academy and the diverse ecosystem
of 2,882 academies on which the program relies.
Examples of Networking Academy partnerships in Europe
France: Through the
Networking Academy program, Cisco will offer students, job seekers,
and people looking to change career, access to new skills in
cybersecurity, networking and IT. Cisco and Plaine Commune, as well
as La Maison de l'Emploi du Territoire de Plaine Commune
(Employment organization of "Plaine Commune") will collaborate for
three years to offer everyone (with a particular focus on
attracting women) the possibility to acquire the essential skills
to live and work in tomorrow's society.
Germany: Networking
Academy collaborates with the REDI School in Germany to certify migrant and refugee women
using Cisco Networking Academy pathways. Women who achieve
certification can access job openings within Cisco and across its
partner ecosystem. This solution has been successfully deployed
during the migrant crisis in 2015 and in the ongoing conflict in
Ukraine.
Greece: In Greece, an ongoing program, in partnership
with Scientific College of Greece
and KEDE (Federation of Greek Municipalities), aims to provide 200
candidates from 8 Greek municipalities (citizens and members of
their administrations) with the chance to participate in a full
cybersecurity certification pathway, free of charge.
Italy: In Turin, Italy, through our partnership with the
municipality of Turin, the Cisco
Networking Academy provided municipal workers with basic training
in cybersecurity thanks to our Introduction to Cybersecurity
course, bolstering the cyber-readiness of the local
administration.
Poland: Cisco
Networking Academy, together with its education partner, the
University of Information Technology and Management (UITM), in
Rzeszów, launched the Start IT - Cisco4Ukraine program to train
10,000 people over the next 2 years. It has been designed for
Ukrainian refugees who want to build digital skills, reskill, or
upskill.
Spain: In Spain, the Cisco Networking Academy has
collaborated with several partners to train women, unemployed
people, and groups at risk of digital social exclusion. In
collaboration with Escuela de Organización Industrial (EOI), they
offered basic training for long-lasting unemployed people and those
under 30 years of age. Networking Academy partner, Human Age
Institute, a part of Manpower, recently finalized its Woman
Rethinking Digital program to train women in cybersecurity
essentials.
UK: In 2022, the Cisco Networking Academy, in partnership
with Glasgow Caledonian University and Scotland Women in
Technology, offered a free cybersecurity learning pathway for women
of all educational backgrounds, aimed at providing candidates with
jobs within the tech ecosystem in Scotland on completion.
About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in technology that
powers the Internet. Cisco inspires new possibilities by
reimagining your applications, securing your data, transforming
your infrastructure, and empowering your teams for a global and
inclusive future. Discover more on The Newsroom and follow us on
Twitter at @Cisco.
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