Microsoft to improve digital skills at European Youth Event and YO!Fest

During the European Youth Event, in Strasbourg, over the next three days Microsoft will be running coding workshops targeting young people between 16 and 26 years, eager to improve their digital skills required in today’s labour market no matter what the profession. Whether you want to be a fashion blogger, social entrepreneur or journalist we all need to take up the challenge of becoming digitally-savvy!

The workshops will train young people on Kodu, a coding initiative under Microsoft YouthSpark, which is engaging for both children and adults. Anyone can use Kodu, with no design or programming skills. Kodu lets young create games and design their own digital fairytale on the PC and Xbox via a simple visual programming language. Kodu can be used to teach creativity, problem solving, storytelling, as well as programming. There is a hands-on experience planned for each participant.

Participants will be briefly introduced to two more available Microsoft resources for coding:

- Microsoft Small Basic puts the "fun" back into computer programming. With a friendly development environment that is very easy to master, it eases both kids and adults into the world of programming.

- TouchDevelop lets you create apps on iPad, iPhone, Android, PC, Mac, Windows Phone. Our touch-friendly editor makes coding fun, even on your phone or tablet!

As well as getting young people enthusiastic about coding, Microsoft will also be showing YO!Fest-goers all the newest Microsoft technological and device solutions at the Microsoft YouthSpark tent at the Yo!Village.

We asked Microsoft some questions about their involvement in EYE and YO!Fest:

• What do you hope that young people attending EYE and YO!Fest will get out of the Microsoft activities?

Code is shaping the way we live! Whether you want to be a fashion blogger, social entrepreneur or journalist, we need more youth to take up the challenge! In alignment with the European eSkills for Jobs 2014 Campaign, we want young adults to work together, be creative and engage with computer science in a fun manner through Microsoft resources like Kodu.

• Digital revolution is one of the themes of the EYE; what do you think are the key issues around digital revolution for young people?

The digital revolution requires a new means to work together, new ways of thinking and creativity and a new set of skills. To prepare youth and adults for the digital revolution we must understand that computer science is behind everything today. Coding is a great way to start to develop and understand the digital revolution we see around us.

Europeans have the opportunity to focus on what has become an acute skills gap as forecast to reach 750,000 ICT vacancies by 2020 (IDC, Eurostat) and an unmet educational and economic development need – that of computer science education.

Microsoft brings unique solutions to the skills mismatch in Europe by providing scaled education opportunities, digital skills and entrepreneurship training under the YouthSpark initiative that help to prepare youth for quality jobs in the region.

• Why is it so important for Microsoft to engage with young people through initiatives, such as Youth Spark?

As the architects of the future European economy and the talent pool responsible for a better Europe, we are all dependent on the right skills, quality transition to the labour market and civic engagement of Europe’s youth! New and emerging technologies are defining the labour market however skills shortages are seen as one of the top threats to business expansion. One of Europe’s greatest challenges concerning the health of the digital economy, is to promote competitive skills in the field of science, technology and innovation and engage, prepare and facilitate greater access to the job market for youth.

That is why, Microsoft YouthSpark provides a palette of education, job-readiness and entrepreneurship programmes to create opportunities for 300 million youth globally. The aim is to provide technology tools and learning platforms that can transform education and provide access to the digital training, certification and technology literacy that the labour market of today demands. 22.3M young Europeans have become far more IT proficient and work ready and benefited from Microsoft YouthSpark in the first year.