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. 

The initiatives of the National Coalition contribute to achieving the European targets on basic and advanced digital skills, in synergy with the projects and actions carried out at central level. The Coalition’s initiatives primarily target citizens and students, followed by workers in the public and private 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 jobs of the future.  The National Coalition oversees the implementation of the Digital Skills Strategy through the Operational Implementation Plan and the annual monitoring cycle, in line with the Digital Decade National Roadmap developed and regularly updated by the Steering Committee

Up to now, almost 300 organizations have joined the Italian Coalition, launching more than 350 projects. Many of these organizations, together with external thematic experts and stakeholders are involved in different working groups, each focused on digital skills related topics.

The Italian Digital Skills Strategy implementation – working groups 

• In the context of Repubblica Digitale, the following working groups are currently active: 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. 

Moreover, we are setting up a working group on AI and education, building on the principles and guidelines defined by the Ministry of Education and Merit (MIM) and on existing experiences. The group will explore the impact of generative, conversational, and affective AI on children, adolescents and learning environments, considering the growing use of AI tools for studying, information retrieval, and interaction. The objective is to foster a dialogue on the development of new skills, responsible approaches, and prevention tools to support the safe and effective use of AI in education.