Italy - National Coalition for Digital Skills and Jobs (Repubblica Digitale)

In April 2020, the Ministry for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition launched the Italian Coalition for Digital Skills and Jobs. The Coalition builds on  ‘Repubblica Digitale’, a multi-stakeholder initiative that promotes digital skills at all levels of the Italian economy and society. The initiative aims to identify and engage as many stakeholders as possible (e.g., businesses, public entities, NGOs etc.), creating a cultural change based on improving the necessary competences to fully realise the benefits of digital transformation. 

In 2023, the initiatives of the National Coalition for Digital Skills have trained more than 5.9 million students, nearly 1 million teachers, over 1,5 million citizens, and more than 250,000 workers from both the private and public sectors.

Objectives 

The objective of the Italian Coalition is to bridge the different forms of social and cultural digital divide among the Italian population, foster digital inclusion and promote the development of skills for the works of the future. Up to now, more than 270 organizations have joined the Italian Coalition and they have launched more than 340 projects. Many of the National Coalition organizations, together with external thematic experts and stakeholders are involved in different working groups, each of them focused on a digital skills related topic.

The Italian Digital Skills Strategy implementation – working groups 

In the context of Repubblica Digitale, five working groups have been created to address five different foreground topics all related to digital skills. The groups are:

• The “DigComp 2.2 translation group", aiming at translating the European Framework “DigComp 2.2” into Italian. The translation made it easier for organizations and training institutes to use the framework in their activities and courses.
• The “Digital Inclusion group”, which aims defining the role of digital facilitators and creating a solid knowledge base for the two measures funded by the NRP, namely the Network of digital facilitation services and the Digital Civic Service
• The group “Challenges and opportunities of gaming for the spread of digital skills”, coordinated with Telefono Azzurro ONLUS, which aims at identifying how to use gaming tools to improve digital skills, especially across the youngest segment of the population.
• The group focused on the “Gender digital gap, coordinated with the Department for family and equal opportunities, aiming at defining and implementing actions that can increase the number of women working in the ICT sector.
• The group focused on “Advanced digital skills” which analyses the issues linked to the lack of ICT specialists in Italy, in particular in the AI sector, given also the high demand for these skills coming from the job market. It also tries to identify viable and shared actions to be carried out to address this issue.