IT: Skills and Regeneration

1
IT Skills and Regeneration

• Chris Yapp
• Head of Public Sector Innovation
• cyap_at_microsoft.com

2
The UK situation

• High take up of IT and IT skills
• Productivity from IT lower than US and others
• High availability of services by e-, both public
  and private
• Take up lags( of public services)
• Poorest communities worst served
• Digital exclusion is the key challenge

3
IT and Globalisation

• Minimum skill set for a living wage rising
• Demand for low-skilled workers falling
• Rate of change of skill needs increasing
• State budgets under pressure
• Increased demands for creativity, innovation,
  design and personal/inter-personal skills

4
The Underlying Logic

• People are for thinking, machines for doing
• If it can be done, it can be automated
• If it can be automated it can be done elsewhere
  more cheaply

What do we mean by high-skilled?
5
The Changing Pattern of Education

• Traditional Phases

Education
Training
Work
Retirement
Lifelong Learning
Education
Training
Work
Retirement
6
Digital Exclusion

• Amplification of existing social divides
• Creation of new barriers
• Depth of exclusion

7
Building the demand
Moving from Consumers of content To creators and
contributors
8
Patterns of Exclusion

• Age
• Gender
• Income
• Low-skills
• Disabilities
• Minority Languages
• Ethnicity
• Rural and remote

• Key is to understand community formation
• Deficit model can create problems
• Multiple causes
• Location, location, location

9
The Knowledge Economy

• Creative Economy
• Digital Media
• Knowledge enhanced products