It was a great pleasure to support, together with other companies in the area, the event organized by the association ICT-Formazione Professionale Svizzera italiana with the aim of helping young people interested in pursuing an education in new technologies to discover ICT professions and ask their questions to experts on the spot.
Every year about 250 ICT apprentices compete in regions throughout Switzerland for the title of regional champion in their discipline, but also to gain access to the prestigious national competitions: depending on their placement in the national rankings, competitors can in fact aspire to participate in the Swiss professional championships, the most recent example of which are the past SwissSkills.
With the successful first edition held last March at the Scuola Superiore d’informatica di gestione di Bellinzona, where not only were the first Ticino ICT champions crowned, but our canton saw a young Ticino apprentice qualify for the national competitions, held in Bern in September 2022 as part of the SwissSkills. An unexpected success that the organizers of the championships wanted to repeat – for the better – in 2023.
“I think that many young people often struggle to understand how to direct their careers because they lack communication with professionals who could help them understand what a specific job consists of. Also, not all companies are open to welcoming apprentices or interns in-house because they are seen as a cost and not as what they really are: an investment. This unfortunately creates a mismatch between the skills required by employers and those of students coming out of school, making it difficult to find the right profiles to include in their workforce.” Sladjana Timotijevic, Founder of 4IT Solutions comments and concludes: “in our industry we need fresh minds, minds that were born and raised with technology, minds that can give us that extra edge that we lack. We will never stop supporting these initiatives and believing in the importance of training young people.”