EU experts stress the importance of incorporating digitisation to the skills of people and companies for employment

• European Commission and Konrad Adenauer Foundation online conference: “Big Data; digitisation, the European strategy”
• Lorena Boix: “After the Covid pandemic, investment must be made in digitisation and in artificial intelligence, above all in SMEs and in educating people”

Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2020 05 19

The European Commission Director of Policy Implementation and Planning and its Directorate General for Communications Networks Content and Technology-DG Connect, Lorena Boix, has emphasized “the importance for companies, especially SMEs, and for people, of the need for digital knowledge and qualification given what it will mean for employment and access to it”. 

 This afternoon, the European Commission and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation gave the video conference entitled “Big Data; digitisation, the European strategy” followed by almost two hundred people, among them representatives of the Basque Government Ministry of Employment and Social Policies and of Innobasque, and which had the participation of Francisco Fonseca, director of the European Commission representation in Madrid, Wilhelm Hofmeister and Martin Friedik from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Lorena Boix, Núria Oliver, representative of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence and ACM scientist, PhD from the MIT and Chief Scientific Advisor of the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications and Jochen Müller, Deputy Head of the European Commission representation.   

Lorena Boix, a recognised expert who has been working in Brussels for more than 15 years, observed that, “generally-speaking, there is a lack of digital qualification”, stressing that Spain “has a good infrastructure, particularly referring to broadband, but that not enough people are dedicated to it. Following the Covid pandemic, investment must be made in digitisation and in artificial intelligence, above all in SMEs and in the training of all people who will take up jobs”.

Big Data

The speakers also warned about the current global situation of United States/Europe/China blocks in Big Data management “where European Union policy focusses on people and with a marked social component. All of this cannot be entrusted to a single Country. Europe needs a clear-cut digitisation strategy and we must multiply efforts in this respect”.  

On February 19, the European Commission presented a White Paper on Artificial Intelligence and a European data strategy. Both initiatives aim to achieve a European society driven by digital solutions strongly rooted in the European values that enrich the lives of all citizens, and the persistence of European technological applications in the global market.

In a new context marked by the COVID-19 global pandemic, European Commission initiatives in the digital field are of utmost importance given that in the medium and long term digital technologies will have a significant effect on customs and lifestyles and on the quality of democracies.

More information: EU White Paper on Artificial Intelligence:  

https://op.europa.eu/es/publication-detail/-/publication/aace9398-594d-11ea-8b81-01aa75ed71a1