The 2020 issue of Digital Skills Insights features eight articles discussing different aspects of capacity development and skills requirements in the digital era. These include the types of skills needed in the digital economy and future labour market, new jobs and associated skills requirements, specific digital technologies and their impact on skills development, new skills required to manage data and information generated online, as well as a set of articles that explore the topic of gender and digital skills.
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See the key messages and download the individual articles below
"The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transition and revealed the challenges that still exist when it comes to connecting households and people, as well as the digital skills required to participate effectively in the online world. As a result of the pandemic, the need for a digitally competent population and the demand for a digitally skilled workforce has grown even more pronounced." by Susan Teltscher
"With the fast growing digital technology and its adoption in different industries, building the right system to teach « how to learn and use technology » and « how to create and maintain technology » is the biggest challenge of the education sector. The system has to find the right combination of human thinking and machine learning to enhance the ability of humans to solve complex problems." by Hakima Chaouchi and Thomas Bourgeau
"Interaction and close coordination between Governments, higher education institutions and industry is required for building a framework on skills and abilities for future jobs in the digital economy." by Elyn L. Solano-Charris, Carolina Velásquez-Mora & Estephanie Silva-Avellaneda
"Artificial intelligence is reshaping the nature of employment around the world; digital skills training may enable people to migrate to new job categories." by Lav Varshney
"As the world migrates towards the digital economy, foundational digital skills are crucial to ensure workforce inclusiveness. The digital platform economy offers low-skilled workers the chance to supplement their incomes while maintaining their core jobs. This will require building human capital readiness and establishing a national digital skills development strategy." by Hilda Mwakatumbula and Goodiel Moshi
"The key issue about Data Citizenship is that it is not only about how to protect yourself online but to become curious and a pro-active data citizen. Citizens are not only viewed as passive receivers of the datafication processes but as proactive participants, activists and co-creators of data society." by Alicja Pawluczuk, Simeon J. Yates, Elinor Carmi, Eleanor Lockley and Bridgette Wessels
"Bridging the gender digital divide relies on inclusive public policies that address barriers to Internet access and digital empowerment for women and girls. This requires expanding the capabilities of policy-makers themselves to develop targeted initiatives to close the gender gap in technology, data and policymaking." by Ingrid Brudvig, Nanjira Sambuli and Dhanaraj Thakur
"Leveraging novel, aggregate data on user counts from the world’s largest professional networking platform, we show how men generally outnumber women in the information technology (IT) sector on the platform. Gender gaps are largest in low and lower-middle income countries, and in IT subdomains focused on computer programming rather than communications and services." by Florianne C.J. Verkroost, Ridhi Kashyap, Kiran Garimella, Ingmar Weber and Emilio Zagheni
"Women and girls are underrepresented in the 21st century digital workforce. Innovative digital skills capacity building programmes designed to bridge this gender digital gap have proven to be effective in Africa by tackling the key factors hindering girls’ participation in the programmes." by Babatunde Okunoye