European eSkills Week 2012, the information campaign aimed to develop Information Society, promote eSkills and the ICT professions throughout Latvia, took place from the 26 to 30 March 2012 with more than 36 000 participants.

This year Latvia was the most active eSkills Week participant taking the first place in Europe followed by Romania and Lithuania. Almost 890 different events in practically all the regions and towns of Latvia took place during the eSkills Week, involving more than 200 partners. From the 36 000 participants, 59% were women and 41% men, 61% young people till age of 24. Among them were more than 1000 people who had never used computer before.

The main topics covered were:

• Young people and their career opportunities related to eSkills and as well as ICT specialised careers;
• ICT solutions in education;
• Digital skills for employment;
• eSkills and ICT solutions for Small and Medium Enterprises;
• Digital skills for personal growth and participation.

The main activities in Latvia were:

• different kind of tests, questionnaires about ICT security skills and eServices like "Test your ability to find information and get to know Latvian trails" ect.;
• seminars, workshops, conferences for enterpreuers, schoolchildren and inhabitants in general;
• a number of activities organised by Libraries Net for unemployed people, pensioners and all other interested parties;
• The ICT Career Day took place for the first time with the purpose to empower young people from 9 to 12 years old to get acquainted with ICT industry related professions by visiting the relevant enterprises and organisations. During the ICT Career Day, 16 Latvian enterprises offered more than 230 students and teachers the possibility to follow their work and have access to ICT related occupations and attend seminars. These companies were: Lattelecom, Latvian Mobile, Microsoft Latvia, Swedbank etc.

Further Information:

• Original news article - eSkills Week 2012 webpage
• The Latvian Information and Communications Technology Association - LIKTA webpage (in Latvian)