Perspectives of work, from training to innovation

Google launches its University. This title appeared a few weeks ago in the newspapers and on the social message boards of many of us. Going a little deeper, it turns out that the title is misleading: in fact, online courses created to respond to the lack of skills in the new digital disciplines were presented. Courses that lead to certifications in sectors such as data analytics, program management, software.

This error does not change the substance of the facts: universities are struggling to train figures necessary for the job market and other players are proposing themselves as new training grounds for talents. To say it are the data: a recent global research by ManpowerGroup estimates that 54% of companies detect a shortage of qualified talent in the recruitment phase (47% in Italy). A trend destined to get worse.
This is also reflected in the ability of businesses and management to innovate, particularly in Italy where digital literacy is still a cultural problem for businesses and society.

We talked about it with Alberto Giusti, digital transformation expert with over twenty years of experience in business strategy and CEO for several internet companies, one of the founders of the Digital Building Blocks movement for digital transformation and Guilds42, a meeting platform, training and work for businesses and young people.

According to various indicators, such as the Global Innovation Index 2019 or the European Innovation Scoreboard 2020, Italy is among the moderately innovative countries, below the European average and at a different distance from the Innovation leaders. In your opinion, which policies can speed up the innovation processes in the country?

In my opinion, the first focus is on education. In Italy, for example, there is no university or doctoral course on entrepreneurship, and it is one of the few countries that does not have one. This is a serious shortcoming: the consequence is that the entrepreneur tends to be “improvised” or self-taught. In addition there is also a cultural theme, those who leave university do not decide to become an entrepreneur, they are almost seen as a plan B, when in reality in other countries, where this type of path has a high social value, the entrepreneur is esteemed while in Italy he is almost mistreated.

The rest of this entry is in italian.