Pre-Conference Workshop FD3
Boosting the Use of Online Training by Small Companies in Europe
Date Wednesday, Dec 5 Time – RoomSchöneberg Price: free of charge Status: fully booked
Workshop leaders
Kristina Dervojeda
Senior Manager, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, The Netherlands
Dr. Kristina Dervojeda leads PwC Innovation Research Centre of PwC Netherlands. She specialises in policy research in the field of emerging technologies, with a particular focus on skills and new/alternative forms of education and training. Specific topics of interest include Key Enabling Technologies and skills-related issues for high-tech occupations. Kristina has an extensive track record of working on multi-country assignments for the European Commission in a role of Project Manager and Senior Expert. Kristina holds a PhD degree in Innovation Management at the University of Twente.
Links
Naveen Srivatsav
Emerging Technologies Researcher, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, The Netherlands
Speakers
Kristoffer Hedram
Lin Education, Sweden
Nikitas Kastis
Researcher and Educational Policy Analyst, Mind2Innovate, Greece
Nikitas Kastis has a First Honours Degree in Engineering and a Ph.D. in Financial Management and Evaluation, with the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA).
He has been Research Associate at the NTUA, Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Crete and Visiting Professor for Production Management & Decision Making at the Greek Air Force Academy. In 1992 he joined Lambrakis (Research) Foundation to lead its innovation programmes and actions, dealing with implementation and impact assessment and related to the evolution of the ICT-based applications in education and culture as well as with their validation for learning and for human capacity building.
He has managed a significant number of national and European research and innovation projects and studies, for the quality upgrade in school and post-secondary education and training, formal and informal as well as adults learning. Since 1999 and till 2016, he had served as the President of the BoD of the MENON Network, a European body (EEIG) contributing as a European learning and innovation think-tank.
Since 2016 he has founded an education & social policy consulting company, named Mind2Innovate, which is taking stock on the research and analysis legacy of the European MENON Network, continuing the policy and programme consulting work and supporting evidence-based policy making for education and other sectors of social-affairs policy making. He has also served, since 2016, as Chief Advisor to the University of Athens Distance Education Centre, the eLearning/Online Learning Programme. Dr N. Kastis had been a Member of the Executive Committee of EDEN and he is an EDEN Research Fellow. He had also been the Chair of its “Open Classroom” Working Group, from 2000 to 2008.
He has been and is currently participating to a number of education policy-making studies and learning innovation projects for the European Commission, national and international stakeholders.
Links
http://www.menon.orghttp://www.lrf.gr
Christian Friedl
Graz University of Applied Sciences, Austria
Christian is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of International Management at FH JOANNEUM - University of Applied Sciences in Graz, Austria teaching entrepreneurship and project management. His research focuses on (corporate) entrepreneurship, edupreneurship, and university-business corporation. He is operational project leader of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Austria, the coordinator of several EU-wide and international research projects (e.g. BizMOOC – Knowledge Alliance on MOOCs), and developer of/facilitator in business MOOCs (e.g. on Intrapreneurship or Competences for Global Collaboration).
Christian holds a Master´s degree in Business Administration and Environmental System Sciences, a Postgraduate Master´s degree in European Project and Public Management and he is Graduated Adult Educator (wba austria). Currently, he is doing his PhD in the field of corporate entrepreneurship education at the University of Graz. Besides academia, he was working in music industries for 14 years.
Märt Aro
DreamApply, Estonia
Since 2004 Märt has co-founded 3 NGO’s and 4 companies in education development.
Märt is passionate about internationalization of education, as he believes that studying abroad is very important for one’s self-development.
Business wise Märt is currently dedicated on DreamApply.com Student Admission Platform that he co-founded in 2011. www.DreamApply.com is used by more than 200 universities from across 30 countries. By now the platform has served over 600 000 students’ applications to full degree studies, student exchange and scholarship programmes.
In 2016 Märt established the Nordic EdTech Forum www.NordicEdTechForum.org which brings together founders of education innovation organisations and companies from across 8 Northern European countries with the aim of improving learning experience to everybody, globally.
He also enjoys doing education development and internationalisation consultations/trainings on university and national level.
Märt also is a proud father of two lovely sons Aston (11) and Hasse Kristjan (9).
Sarah Cherif
CUTESolutions, Belgium
Content
For most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and particularly for SMEs active in high-tech domains, it is highly difficult to find, attract and retain highly skilled individuals. SMEs cannot afford significant training costs requiring long periods of absence of their staff. At the same time, upskilling and reskilling are of key importance for them, as rapid technological developments quickly make existing knowledge and skills obsolete. SMEs could use online training as a more cost-effective, flexible and accessible way to educate their staff. However, the adoption of online training by European SMEs is occurring at a slow pace.
To this end, the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) and the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) of the European Commission have recently launched a new initiative on “Promoting Online Training Opportunities for the Workforce in Europe”.
This initiative strives to explore the role of online training in tackling the skills-related challenges in Europe, with a particular focus on high-tech SMEs. It implies performing an extensive state-of-play analysis, developing a common vision and formulating recommendations for supporting measures. Examples of the key issues that are addressed by this initiative include
- What exactly needs to be done and by whom to stimulate the uptake of online training by SMEs in Europe?
- How should the funding of online training-related initiatives for the workforce be organised?
- How can online training best complement other (more traditional) forms of training?
- What are the most promising ways of reaching out to the workforce (particularly within SMEs) to engage them in online training?
Online training here refers to a wide range of digital learning solutions, including bespoke and off-the-shelf e-learning, video content, mobile learning, MOOCs, virtual reality, gamification, etc. The outcome of this initiative will play a prominent role in forming future EU policymaking in regard to online training.
The current expert Pre-Conference Workshop will discuss detailed proposals for support measures to stimulate the uptake of online training by SMEs in Europe. The Workshop will feature good-practice examples and practical illustrations of the proposed solutions. Furthermore, it will provide a platform for discussion, with an opportunity for participants to provide facts, figures, testimonies and solutions.
Target Audience
Hands-on practitioners and industry professionals, including course developers, publishers, and vendors, as well as facilitators and policy makers with a shared interest in technology-enhanced learning.
Outcomes
Specifically, your contribution will help us further develop a blueprint for the common vision for EU policymaking in the field of online training for SMEs. This common vision will include specific measures, roles and priorities at the EU and national levels for implementation towards 2022 and beyond.
Agenda
| 10:00 | Welcome and introduction |
| 10:30 | SMEs and online training: a match made in heaven? |
| 11:00 | The good, the bad and the ugly truth about innovation in lifelong learning: towards an ecosystem approach |
| 11:30 | Discussion and participants’ feedback |
| 12:00 | Lunch |
| 13:00 | Towards specific measures for promoting online training among European SMEs |
| 15:00 | Discussion and participants’ feedback |
| 15:30 | Wrapping up: concluding remarks |