On some of the results of the Youth Digital Skills program, launched by the Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction, IT Park and UNDP

On October 24-27, Samarkand City hosts the main event of the year in the field of information technology "ICTWEEK UZBEKISTAN 2022", which also presents the program "Youth Digital Skills".

What is this program and what are its goals?

The goal of the program is to empower young people, especially women, by building digital entrepreneurship skills, digital tools and improving the enabling environment. The program is already contributing to increasing employment opportunities, competitiveness and reducing inequality, ensuring inclusive, innovative and sustainable economic growth and job creation.

The program implements 13 initiatives, covering almost the entire field of information technology, aimed at further development of digital entrepreneurship in the country, training youth and women in digital skills - from the ability to find and evaluate important content online to advanced user know-how, such as online marketing and commerce.

At the ICTWEEK site the results of research of IT-market of Uzbekistan, including the potential and trends and digital entrepreneurship and skills needed in the rapidly evolving digital reality will be presented.

Also, the Digital Pulse tool, which is a digital diagnostic tool for commercial organizations, will be presented to the public, allowing online assessment of the digital efficiency of companies in six key business areas (digital communication; digital customer relations; personnel and digital innovation; information and IT security; compa ny management through digital tools; and digital production and service delivery). This tool helped diagnose the level of digitalization of business processes in more than 250 companies , the diagnostic results formed the basis of the digital transformation of small businesses, motivating youth- led businesses to new business ideas and approach.

Particular attention is paid to the field of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). This is one of the varieties of outsourcing in which an organization outsources certain business processes to another company. Within the framework of this initiative, development of the BPO methodology is being completed, and support is provided for the launch of new services and directions of BPO businesses . In order to create sustainable conditions for the development of BPO, institutional capacity of BPO schools is being strengthened in the regions . For the implementation of BPO direction is organized by the training program on the directions of BPO and internships for young people from 17 to 40 years old who want to get international experience in outsourcing companies.

Another direction is programs and IT Women. The project organizes for young women, training short-term courses in computer literacy, basic knowledge of planning and implementation of successful business projects. Within the framework of this initiative, the process of selection of participants is underway, by the end of 2022 it is planned to train 2000 people.

In addition, as part of the Future Skills initiative, digital literacy courses have been organized for young people living in the regions. The goal is to increase the number of young people with digital technologies and e-commerce skills for active use in the service sector. By the end of this year at least 10 thousand young people will have completed the training . As of today, the number of students in these trainings across the country has already reached 4,500 people.

The Youth Digital Skills program also includes training consultants and digital business support through Business Development Support Centers ( Business Development Support Centers) , a digital mentoring program for micro, small and medium enterprises, and other areas.

Other important areas of Youth Digital Skills are research conducted by Foresight (forecasting) to identify in-demand future skills, piloting the digitalization of the value chain in selected MSMEs, digital mentoring initiatives for 50 young entrepreneurs, digital internship programs for women, and discussion of the prepared concept of YouthLab, a national coordination platform for supporting innovative entrepreneurial initiatives in the form of a public-private dialogue on IT.

It is expected that these initiatives will help the development of IT-industry in the country, thousands of young entrepreneurs, especially women, living in remote areas of the country, will receive much needed skills in the modern world of computer literacy and be able to conduct a digital transformation of their business.

The program "Youth Digital Skills" is implemented by the Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction of the Republic of Uzbekistan, IT Park and the United Nations Development Program as part of the project "Empowering youth for the development of the digital economy and digital entrepreneurship.'

Information Service of the

Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction