The project of “EU Support for the Competitiveness of Kosovo’s ICT Sector”, financed by EU and implemented by WEglobal in consortium with European Management and Prishtina REA, and in cooperation with Ministry of Economy, organised the Certification Award Ceremony for the 5th round of the ICT and Digital Skills Training Programme.

The project is designed to address the lack of skilled workforce in Kosovo ICT sector by providing advanced ICT training for students, graduated students from computer sciences, engineering, programming and maths, even developers staff from ICT companies, start-ups and freelancers. The project seeks to improve youth digital knowledge and skills to have the possibility to ensure their employment and future career in ICT sector, start their own businesses as start-ups in existing innovation or incubation centres of Kosovo or become an ICT freelancer/consultant. On the other hand, the project contributes to increase the business skills of ICT businesses and promote their products through organisation of targeted business and management training, B2B events in EU countries, promotes the digitalisation of traditional sectors by bringing together ICT businesses with companies from other domestic important sectors of economy.

The results to be achieved by the end of the Project are the following:

The Digital Skills are enhanced and ICT skilled workforce is developed in a sustainable manner that meets the need of the market and enhanced competitiveness of Kosovo ICT and traditional businesses

Export capacities of Kosovar ICT businesses are enhanced by supporting cooperation between Kosovar ICT businesses with domestic and international companies, with the organisation of three international ICT conferences, six international B2B events and 25 regional B2B events in Kosovo,

Preparation for implementation of e-IDAS in Kosovo- identification and design of the appropriate framework and solution for e-ID system in Kosov

The Round V’s Certification Award Ceremony was organised to deliver certificates to 251 trainees, who participated in the 300-hour advanced ICT training programme in one of seven training modules: Web Development professional, Enterprise Java Programming, Cyber Security, Web Development Practitioner, Python, Bigdata Analytics and Machine Learning, during the last five months by experienced international and local trainers. The certificates were awarded to trainees who successfully completed the ICT training and passed the final examination, and to ICT business senior managers and certified ICT trainees, who completed successfully a three weeks Business and Management Training focused on International Marketing

The event was organised by the “ICT for Kosovo’s Growth“ project team, with participants from the Ministry of Economy, EU Office in Kosovo, STIKK, business partners, trainers and trainees of the training programmes. The event was attended by more than 200 people including managers from ICT companies, partners of other projects and organisations.

The award certification ceremony was honoured by the participation of Mr.Alessandro Bianciardi – Deputy Head of Cooperation Section, who expressed the confidence of the EU Office in Kosovo in the direct contribution of the Project to the development of young people’s digital skills and the promotion of ICT sector exports. The Deputy Minister of Ministry of Economy Mr. Getoar Mjeku, who stated the aim of the government and the Ministry of Economy to work further to develop skilled and internationally competitive young workforce for the needs of ICT sector. The Team Leader of the Project, Grigoris Kontzoglou presented the achievements and the further plans of the Project, among others he underlined that the main target of the Project, which is to provide advanced ICT training to 1440 people, has been exceeded already by 6,1% since 1528 people were
trained so far.

The project continues with the Round VI of advanced ICT and Digital training programme, next international B2B events in Vienna and regional B2B events in Kosovo