Data econ­o­my to boost Fin­land’s growth – New microde­gree to skill more experts

Sitra esti­mates that the val­ue of the Euro­pean data econ­o­my will exceed one tril­lion euros this year. At the same time, only 1% of Finnish com­pa­nies uses data to cre­ate new busi­ness. The short­age of data experts is slow­ing our growth.

The data econ­o­my is already a sig­nif­i­cant part of busi­ness in most indus­tries, includ­ing the pub­lic sec­tor, and its role will only grow in the near future. Orga­ni­za­tions must learn to cre­ate val­ue from data and devel­op data-uti­liz­ing busi­ness mod­els to suc­ceed in a com­pe­ti­tion where skilled pio­neers win.

AI also increas­es the need for data exper­tise because it requires large amounts of high-qual­i­ty data, an in-depth under­stand­ing of data to devel­op algo­rithms, and ways to solve cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and data pro­tec­tion chal­lenges. In addi­tion, we need the abil­i­ty to ana­lyze and inter­pret data to sup­port deci­sion-mak­ing and the con­tin­u­ous devel­op­ment of data expertise.

We need data experts right now. That is why we have, togeth­er with high­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies, cre­at­ed a Data Skills microde­gree that is free of charge and open to all, enabling every­one to acquire the basics of data in as lit­tle as two months. The microde­gree has been estab­lished in coop­er­a­tion with high­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions, Arrow ECS Fin­land, Atea, Cloud1, Elisa, Islet, Microsoft, and Sovel­to Eduhouse.

Data Skills microde­gree is part of a larg­er goal to train 300,000 tech­nol­o­gy experts

Data Skills microde­gree is part of the broad­er Skills for Jobs pro­gram, which aims to sup­port Fin­land in becom­ing one of the most advanced coun­tries in the world in AI, data econ­o­my, cyber secu­ri­ty, and sus­tain­able IT. Over the past two years, 130,000 experts have accu­mu­lat­ed new tech­nol­o­gy skills through the pro­gram. The pro­gram aims to train 300,000 new or fur­ther trained tech­nol­o­gy experts with­in five years.

Skills for Jobs pro­gram also offers Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, Pow­er Plat­form, and AI Devel­op­er microde­grees, a pop­u­lar Prac­ti­cal AI course, as well as oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties for devel­op­ing exper­tise through dif­fer­ent train­ing part­ners’ client and part­ner skills programs.

Towards an AI-dri­ven growth: aka​.ms/​d​a​t​a​t​a​i​dot

More infor­ma­tion on Data Skills microdegree

Data Skills microde­gree includes the basics of cloud ser­vices and data ana­lyt­ics, the basics of Microsoft Azure ser­vices, the use of Microsoft Fab­ric to process and ana­lyze data, the devel­op­ment and analy­sis of data pro­cess­ing skills, the cre­ation of visu­al­ly infor­ma­tive reports to sup­port deci­sion-mak­ing, and secu­ri­ty issues cov­er­ing data pro­tec­tion and management.

The microde­gree is

• Open to all
• Free of charge
• Worth 12 credits
• In Eng­lish
• Made in coop­er­a­tion with high­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions, Arrow ECS Fin­land, Atea, Cloud1, Elisa, Islet, and Sovel­to Eduhouse.

More infor­ma­tion: