FIAA’s Digital Economy Council organized a workshop to exchange experience, share good practices and gather ideas on preparing a concrete action plan aimed at improving the situation of human capital involved in the digital economy in Albania.
Stakeholders from a quadruple helix composed of several FIAA’s member companies, universities and technical high schools, government representatives from the ministries of education, youth, economy, and finance as well as the recently founded agency for startups, and civil society, contributed to a valuable discussion enriched by different perspectives. As clearly stated by FIAA’s representatives, the aim is not to produce one further policy paper to be added to several dozen papers already addressing the skills gap in the human capital in Albania, but to propose a set of concrete recommendations that can be implemented by the involved stakeholders in the next future.
Mr. Balazs Revesz, Chairman of the Digital Economy Council, presented the mission, vision, and a part of the action plan of the Council, which is built around the European Digitalization Compass, whose indicators are part of DESI – the Digital Economy and Society Index.
Right now, Albania has a total score in this index of 30, which is under the average EU score of 52. In its section dedicated to human capital, Albania has a score of 30, which is under the average EU score of 46 and the average Western Balkans score of 34. Albania lies before the EU average in terms of the number of female ICT specialists, and lies ahead of the Western Balkans average in terms of the number of ICT specialists and ICT graduates, but lies behind in indicators such as “at least basic digital skills”, “above basic digital skills”, “at least basic software skills”, and “enterprises providing ICT trainings.” This means that there is much need for intervention on the side of all stakeholders involved in the ecosystem.
The Council has set a clear mission to become a forum of meaningful dialogue between all stakeholders on different perspectives of what it takes to digitalize the country; to support the government with technical know-how from other countries and by tapping into the know-how of the companies that are part of FIAA; to facilitate best practice sharing by also having a role in educating local businesses about digitalization.
The Council believes that Albania has the potential to really become the most developed digital hub of the Western Balkans, a destination for ICT businesses and talents, attracting foreign and local investments, a country where digitalization reaches every sector.
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