The Youth and Industry 4.0 campaign will be launched in Ukraine at the end of January. The main goal is to build a common agenda for industrialists and high-tech sectors in this area, which should include a clear statement of the main challenges, directions and specific action plans, identification of best practices, etc. Accordingly, the campaign includes analytical work to clarify the situation, coverage of best practices in the media, roundtables in the regions of the country, and the final conference in Kyiv in early March. The main partners in organizing the campaign are the Industry4Ukraine platform (Sustainable Industry Committee), APPAU, and IAM clusters in Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv. The main events of the campaign received the status of EU Industry weeks from the European Commission.
This publication details certain aspects of the campaign and invites potential partners to cooperate.
Context of the campaign
The topic of “How to prepare young people for Industry 4.0” is one of the top issues in the world, but it is not yet sufficiently raised in Ukraine. In general, Ukrainian industrialists have long been alarmed by the outflow of personnel and the low motivation of young people to work at their enterprises. At the same time, their policies and strategies for attracting young people are not competitive enough, especially in relation to the IT industry and migration policies of neighboring countries such as Poland. Industrial and engineering companies, system integrators, and developers in industrial high-tech also complain about the low level of professional skills and knowledge of young professionals that does not meet the requirements of the modern world.
At the same time, industrial market participants themselves are not sufficiently involved in the development of new educational programs in Industry 4.0 technologies, as the IT industry does for its own needs. According to numerous estimates of the APPAU, as the leading business association of Industry 4.0 in Ukraine, industrialists are significantly inferior in such practices and are losing the “battle for personnel and talents” to both the IT industry and the migration policies of our neighbors in the EU.
Thus,
The outflow of personnel and young people from industry, the poor level of training of young professionals, and the low effectiveness of industrialists’ competitive strategies in counteracting these phenomena are the 3 main challenges addressed by this campaign.
These challenges are the same at the regional and national levels, and they are the basis for the goals and objectives of the campaign.
The issues of skills and preparation of young people for Industry 4.0 are fully relevant to similar problems in the EU, so this campaign and its events have a special status from the European Commission – EU Industry weeks
Campaign goals
This campaign has 3 main objectives:
- Engaging a broad range of industry and other stakeholders in considering these challenges as national-level threats.
- Reaching a common consensus on youth engagement, including consideration of preparing young people for the challenges of the dual digital and green transitions.
- Creation of a joint agendas (long-term action program) for industrial sectors as a response to these challenges. The first stage of this program is to create a list of best practices of industrialists in engaging young people in the campaign.
Main stages and activities of the campaign
Campaign activities include, but are not limited to:
- Market survey (January 15 – February 3) – conducting a survey (online + personal interviews) to identify the main challenges in attracting young people to industrial hi-tech (Industry 4.0).
- A mass media campaign (from the end of January) aimed at drawing attention to the problems of attracting young people to industry and industrial high-tech.
- Holding regional roundtables (February) in the regions:
- February 8 – Kharkiv.
- February 10 – Zaporizhzhia.
- February 15 – Mykolaiv.
- February 17 – Vinnytsia.
- February 22 – Kyiv (city).
The purpose of the roundtables is to discuss and formulate: a) a consolidated list of challenges, b) a list of best practices on how industrialists and clusters jointly respond to them.
- The final conference in Kyiv is scheduled for March 3. It is intended to present the best practices developed by the regions and to form a common national-level agenda.
The list of events is not limited – instead, the organizers welcome the involvement of other regions, such as Dnipro and Sumy, where there are also many Industry 4.0 partners.
Formation of a pool of partners
The co-organizers of the campaign are cluster organizations at the national and regional levels – APPAU, the Sustainable Industry Committee of the Industry4Ukraine platform, IAM clusters from Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, Vinnytsia Instrumentation Cluster, Maritime Cluster of Ukraine (Mykolaiv).
We will be happy to welcome the following categories of organizations as partners:
- Specialized departments of the ministries of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, as well as other state institutions at the level of central executive bodies.
- Local governments and departments of science and education, industrial and innovative development of regional state administrations of the regions concerned.
- Members of the Industry4Urkaine platform, as well as other cluster and business associations related to Industry 4.0.
- Chambers of Commerce and Industry, where cooperation with clusters has already been established.
- Industrial unions and associations that also raise the issue of involving young people in industrial development – UAFM, FEU, FEU, USPP, and other industry associations.
- Individual industrial and hi-tech groups, our partners in Industry 4.0, who already have their own best practices for engaging young people in this area.
- Universities of the country – in the respective regions, including 4.0 Centers and DIHs.
Organizations that agree to act as partners receive separate statuses, such as:
- Educational partner (universities).
- Industrial partner (industrialists).
- Governmental partner (ministries and regional state administrations, some – city halls).
Benefits of participation in the campaign for partners
The main benefits for partners of participating in the campaign:
- The broad consolidation of the industrial and high-tech sectors will allow for the development of a common agenda and escalation of key issues and proposals to the central government.
- The campaign is educational in nature and will also introduce best practices in this area in the EU, including policies of government agencies and clusters.
- Partners will have access to a detailed description of best practices, analytics and opinion leaders both in Ukraine and abroad.
- The campaign will also provide PR and promotion at relevant events and online for each of the program partners and will allow them to communicate the most important issues to the European Commission.
The partners’ responsibilities include wide dissemination of information about the campaign events, participation in them, and possible assistance in providing resources.