McMahan Center/CompTIA Educational Foundation/Microsoft Unlimited Potential Workforce development program assisting persons who are disadvantaged in Poland

Through a grant from the McMahan Center and Microsoft Unlimited Potential, CompTIA’s Educational Foundation is replicating its successful Creating Futures program and leveraging participation in the European Alliance on Skills for Employability within the European Union. Its goal: to deliver digital literacy training, credentialing and job placement to a group of economically individuals in Poland.

The project in Poland utilizes the best practices from the original Creating Futures pilot program in Dublin, Ireland that trained 12 individuals with disabilities with digital literacy/computer usability skills (MS Windows, Outlook, Explorer and Office). The program utilized CompTIA’s NITAS skill validation tool and placed these individuals in internships with local employers. The students obtained new skills, earned a NITAS Computer Usability certificate and gained valuable work experience that now gives them the option to pursue additional education at the college level or to seek full-time employment.

The last five years have seen tremendous flux in the manner in which IT careers are developed. IT tools fundamentally changed the way all companies do business and IT capacity is now a fundamental determinant for the success of a company. As such, the ability of workers to gain and use IT skills will reverberate far beyond IT companies and IT staffs. New strategies must be developed for new workers striving not just for proficiency but excellence in the knowledge-based economy.

The Foundation has partnered with training providers, educational institutions, employers and industry associations to incorporate its Creating Futures framework of workforce development standards, tools and resources into the workplace. This framework will enable training providers to become more effective partners with employers. It helps employees to become more qualified to perform to employer expectations and employers to be better prepared to assist workers from diverse populations to move along a career path that can increase success for incorporating them into the mainstream workforce.

Creating Futures links training providers and employers to workers with exactly the right skills and work experience training to ensure employment success for target populations that have traditionally lacked the opportunity to engage in valuable training options for meaningful and productive careers.

The ComTIA Educational Foundation along with CompTIA staff and member organizations identified partners in Poland with the ability to recruit program participants. Participants are from one of two regions Garwolin and Random. Digital literacy training takes place each week for 6 months. During the training, participants are placed in internships or entry-level jobs. Depending upon the region, training takes place either two or three days a week for six months.

As a result, program partners in both locations in Poland will have new tools and knowledge to identify and effectively train individuals on IT employer-required skills. They will validate those skills in a manner that puts their students at the head of the hiring line and, when employed, can assist both the worker and employer to progress along a career path, starting at the entry level. The CompTIA’s Educational Foundation will gain the knowledge and skills to adapt Creating Futures in other parts of the world and with other populations enabling them to replicate this program on a larger scale.