As part of the European Business Summit 2018 (23–24 May 2018), YouthProAktiv attended an interesting “Meet the Expert” session with Karen Boers, CEO of BeCode.org and Co-founder & Managing Director of Startups.be, about e-skills, the importance of these in the current labour market and some of the recent initiatives.

Continuous changes of the labour market and the current unemployment situation, not only among young people but also older people, are related to a skills gap between what employers need and what is offered by job seekers. The skills needed have been changing, and e-skills are growing in importance, being an absolute must in technology and other areas. Many young people are not fully aware of the differences between today’s jobs and past jobs. E-skills are often not developed properly because of the (wrong) belief that technology and e-skills are difficult, but e-skills are also forgotten in formal education. Education has to change because the new technologies are different, as well as the labour market, Ms Boers stated.

Despite technology being a problem for most people, “all people can learn it”, she believes; a vast majority of people have the capacity for so-called ‘sequential thinking’, which would allow them to learn how to programmme or how to create an app for their business. Based on this belief, she created BeCode: a group of people, companies and associations who care about technology and convinced that any motivated person should get the opportunity to learn to code.

Ms Boers explained to the audience how BeCode works. Its aim is to provide competitive and responsible coding school programmes, accessible to all. The programmes provide individual support for securing a sustainable profession. The programme has two phases: a Brussels-based pilot campus, later successfully replicated at a branch in Charleroi (Belgium); and scaling up to a wide network of coding schools. This method has a proven track record, with a 78% positive outcome: within 6 months, 78% of students have proceeded to employment, their own startup or advanced training.

For more reflections on topics such as digital and e-skills and the labour market, feel free to look at our articles on more EBS sessions and other interesting events.