ICT is the Future - Integration through Competence Testing and Training was developed by three partner organisations: AiCS - Associazione Italiana Cultura Sport (Italy), CEPROF - Centros Escolares de Ensino Profissional, Lda (Portugal) and ZAUG - Zentrum Arbeit und Umwelt Giessen gGmbH (Germany). The strategic partnership was established for the exchange of good practices in competence development and social promotion, focusing in particular on digital and vocational education in order to strengthen key competences among disadvantaged target groups and enhance their opportunities for labour market integration and social inclusion.The foundation of the partnership for the exchange of good practice was the drive to create solid cooperation structures among the project partners and to jointly make a long-term contribution at European level in order to respond to the challenges of vocational training due to a changing labour market and ongoing migration movements.Refugees and migrants are one of the most disadvantaged demographic groups. Therefore, the need for digital education, which counts as one of the eight key competences required to achieve employability, is very high among this target group, as well as other socio-economically disadvantaged groups. Acquiring ICT skills, along with other basic skills, is essential for the future employability of these target groups as well as for their social inclusion and personal development in today's information society.Accordingly, the focus of the project was divided into two long-term sub-goals, the improvement of the digital educational offers for these target groups in the respective regions and an improved integration of refugees and migrants in vocational training and the labour market 4.0, as well as the strengthening of their social integration.The project team consisted of a non-governmental organisation in the field of sport and culture promotion with a focus on the social integration of refugees (AiCS), a vocational school for youngsters with an adult education centre for qualification and certification with an ICT focus (CEPROF) and a vocational training provider with a focus on professional qualification and labour market integration, in particular of refugees and migrants (ZAUG).Over the course of two years, the project partners shared their expertise in all relevant areas such as digital education, vocational qualifications, competence testing and certification, labour market integration and social inclusion of refugees and migrants as well as other target groups that are considered digitally excluded or disadvantaged. The professional knowledge and methodological competences of each individual partner complemented the specialisations of the other partners and thus enabled a comprehensive exchange of good practices in all areas addressed, stimulating new ideas for transferring and adapting approved methods for implementation in the regions and countries of the partners and beyond across Europe.The consortium developed a set of criteria for identifying and evaluating good practices, which includes certain quality indicators that the project partners considered relevant for their good practice collection purposes. Based on these criteria, the partners identified good practices that they or their partners have recently implemented and presented them to the consortium. The partners selected the good practice examples from a large number of practices, taking into account the evaluations of these by regional project advisory boards, which promised high relevance as well as great potential for transferability to the respective regions. The advisory boards consisted of associate network partners representing young and adult educational institutions, communal authorities, NGOs and experts working in relevant fields.The results of the ICT is the Future project are a catalogue of criteria for identifying and evaluating good practices in the areas relevant to the project and four collections of good practices with strategies for transferring and adapting to other target groups, vocational training areas and countries. This includes three national collections of good practices and one collection of good practices for European-wide use.Future projects that combine individual components of the various examples of good practices and develop them further so that they can be implemented in a larger European framework and in new fields of application are planned.

"<< Objectives >>Our general objectives in the project are:1) Attracting attention to robotic coding education and cooperating between countries to inform and guide schools in this area.2)To ensure that digital skills are an indispensable part of life and that education systems are improved in this area.3)To inform students about coding.4)To help them gain competence in the coding field and produce different robots.5)To raise individuals who can meet the needs of the age and think analytically.<< Implementation >>The project started in January 2022 ""Robotics Coding Training""will be given by Portuguese trainers in the first country to be determined.The mechanical construction and electronic construction the robot to be designed in the second country to be visited later will be coded in the transnational meeting.With the project to be made,it will be ensured that students receive coding education and put forward different projects.The projects made will be exhibited.Workshops will be noted the instructors.<< Results >>Students-educators will get know Europe and European culture through foreign mobility.At the same time, they will recognize European cult and different geographies. There will be cultural interaction between partners.There will be an increase in the foreign language motivation of the instructors and students.The project result booklet, social media channels, web pages, posters, brochures, surveys, e-book results will be outcomes.As a result of the training, robots will be produced in working."

CONTEXTYouth Entrepreneurship should play a catalytic role in converting STEM advances and innovations into public benefits, thus carrying the ability to create social and environmental value. Accordingly, it has become increasingly recognised that entrepreneurship education should be approached in an interdisciplinary manner to remain capable of satisfying the imperative need for sustainable and eco-friendly communities. It is worth mentioning that research findings testify an increased need for various industries in labour force with an expertise in STEM-oriented disciplines, but also a demonstrated need for business professionals who do maintain the capability to incorporate science (incl. environmental education) and technology -primarily through research and development- into corporate strategies and management plans that could be adapted in consistency with the requirements and peculiarities of both non-for-profit and for-profit sectors. PROJECT OBJECTIVES, METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH & ENVISAGED RESULTS “Green STEAM Incubator” is seeking to investigate the common boarders of STEAM and entrepreneurship, by identifying ways in which STEM-oriented knowledge can be utilised along the path of enhancing agriculture, environmental engineering and social innovation, under the context of Youth-oriented activities. Simultaneously, the project aspires to set a fertile ground for the promotion of a culture of social enterprises, agro-businesses and start-ups, capable of utilising recent technological innovations. Such multifaceted target will be achieved through a sequence of methodologies:-by setting a framework on how to create collaborative affiliations among youth organisations, relevant stakeholders and agro-businesses, with the ultimate goal to foster activities interwoven with the sector of permaculture and organic farming, thus promoting a cross-sectoral, collaborative scientific learning experience for young people (18-35);- by creating gamified methodologies such as treasure hunts, quests and a board game in environmental STEAM-oriented activities that relate permaculture/organic farming and environmental education, with a pedagogical focus habitat conservation and biodiversity; in other words how to conserve, protect and ultimately restore the areas we live in, thus encouraging positive behavioural change of youth, by simultaneously raising awareness concerning enormous eco-systemic issues, e.g. water shortage, water and air pollution, improper disposing of waste, land and soil degradations; - by designing and delivering Modules for “Microcontrollers” and “3D Modelling” Youth Laboratories (Incubators) that will enable participants to acquire knowledge on how to design and promote holistic, high-tech solutions for sustainable communities, that stem from STEAM sector. Such Modules will guide young participants on how to employ “Design Thinking Models” in order to carry out potential environmental projects that bring into life innovative eco-friendly products and services;-by creating and promoting media campaigns and digitized exhibitions which demonstrate eco-friendly products and services, designed and constructed under the context of “Green STEAM Incubator” laboratories. IMPACT ON PARTICIPANTS & TARGET GROUPSGreen STEAM Incubator envisages to directly involve 140 participants (youth workers) in total throughout the pilot testing phase, local training activities and short staff training events, with the aim to bring STEAM laboratories in Youth Organisations, namely:(i)local youth organisations, youth centres and municipalities dealing with disadvantaged groups such as NEET, early school leavers, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, and ex-prisoners, with the aim those to be endowed with STEAM-oriented skills and capacities, which are deemed able to increase their possibilities to penetrate into the local labour market; (ii)youth organisations and youth centres dealing with environment policies and actions (including on-line and off-line campaigns and other events which are seeking to create awareness, by informing the wider public on environmental awareness issues), as well as with the creation of more sustainable and eco-friendly communities;(iii)youth organisations which are focusing on the provision of non-formal education related to social entrepreneurship, green entrepreneurship and agro-entrepreneurship and which primarily function as main providers of specialised education and training to the future generation of agro-entrepreneurs. (iv)youth organisations and youth centres which are seeking to acquire expertise in STEAM-oriented activities which are simultaneously endowed with social, environmental and humanitarian ramifications, thus being capable of providing pioneering solutions to systemic socio-economic and environmental problemsPROJECT CONSORTIUMC.I.P. Citizens In Power (CYPRUS; applicant)Center for Social Innovation (CYPRUS)CEPROF (PORTUGAL)LogoPsyCom (BELGIUM)

PermaVET aims at increasing awareness about climate change among VET trainees in various sustainability-relevant sectors and at developing vocation-specific competences in order to reduce energy use, save resources and process sustainable organic food. The idea is to make use of the permaculture concept to sensitize vocational groups for their specific potential in making a change. The permaculture concept has become increasingly popular in agriculture in recent years. It, however, holds additional potential for optimizing consumption of resources and energy that are meaningful for other vocational fields in environmentally relevant sectors.In this project, this innovative cultivation method will be tested in two exemplary vocational fields, cooking and electronics/mechatronics. VET trainees work on permaculture projects to develop green skills that are strengthening their profiles for a growing environment-friendly market in two sustainability-relevant sectors. This gives the them in-depth insight into current climatic change processes and options for climate adaptation as part of their training occupations. Trainees in cooking learn how to use and handle products from sustainable, ecological agriculture for a constantly growing business field. The curriculum gives them an additional qualification so that they can later work in catering establishments with ecological and healthy concepts. The curriculum gives trainees in electronics/mechatronics an insight into increasingly technological agricultural processes and they develop approaches to improve sustainability and optimize ecological production methods by using smart technologies. The focus lies on recognizing production steps in which energy is released unused and developing technical solutions to use this energy for other production steps.CEPROF as owner of a VET school and ZAUG as VET education center, both active in vocational training for cooking and electronic engineering, will develop the theoretical and practical parts for the specific vocational fields whereas Farm-Advisory will design the theoretical and practical input for permaculture and its impact on the environment. CIP having extensive experience in developing pedagogical educational material in various environmental topics such as agriculture, agribusiness and permaculture, will design innovative methodologies and didactics for the curricula of the 3 modules that will be developed.The first training module (IO1) introduces the topics of climate change and the effects on agriculture and climate adaptation through permaculture. For pilot testing, these topics are worked on with VET trainees in cooking and electronics/mechatronics in order to raise their awareness for the EU Sustainable Development Goals and to create the basis for completing the profession-specific modules.In the second training module (IO2), which is developed for cook training, the trainees learn to recognize the quality and taste differences between ecologically produced and conventionally produced products. They will also learn how to use these products, how to wash them properly, how to adjust the amount of ingredients based on their more intense taste, and how to make food in an ecological and sustainable way. In addition, the trainees learn important skills to be able to work in high class restaurants with a high proportion of organic food. An additional output that the trainees work on, is an exclusive international recipe collection containing dishes that consist of regional, seasonal and ecological products from the partner countries.The curriculum of the third training module (IO3) The training module enables the trainees to get to know the production processes of permaculture, to take into account material consumption and energy consumption and, in a further step, to identify the production steps in which resources remain unused. The trainees learn how to use these unused resources to generate energy for other production steps. By completing the module, the trainees not only learn about organic farming and deal with the important topics of resource use in production processes, but also acquire important skills for a later professional career.The modules are suitable for expanding existing VET curricula in a purposeful manner and are developed in such a way that they can also be easily adapted for the training courses of other professions. In this way it is possible to integrate a central topic of the EU's Sustainable Development Goals, the ecological and sustainable agriculture, into existing VET curricula and to combine these topics with the acquisition of important key competences for different professions. The agricultural cultivation method of permaculture gives trainees and trainers an insight into an agricultural business model that enables the successful establishment of small agricultural businesses and thus favors entrepreneurship, especially in economically weaker countries of the EU.

<< Background >>Software Testing is a process intended to detect errors or gaps early in the software product and solve them before delivery of the software product as well as to check whether the actual software product matches expected requirements. As software products are an integral part of our life, Software Testing is becoming more and more important, being one of key phases when developing any software. Properly tested software ensures reliability, security and high performance which further results in time saving, cost effectiveness and customer satisfaction. Software that does not work correctly can cause many problems like losing money or time - or even worse injuries or death. Software Testing is continually evolving to meet ever-changing business needs as it adopts new tools that allow the tester to push the boundaries of quality assurance. This trend was reinforced since the Covid-19 pandemic that transformed the way of working, pushing everything online and so making the reliance on software products more important than ever.The Global Software Testing services market size is poised to grow by 29.84 billion $ during 2019-2023, according to a new report by Technavio. This indicates that the demand for software testers is growing and job opportunities are boosting. Even so, the Report “The Global State of Software Testers” (2016) points out that there is a relevant shortage in Software Testers, identifying Spain, Portugal, Germany and Poland (countries of the participating organisations in this project) as the countries with the lowest percentage of software testers among 100 000 inhabitants globally. To reduce this shortage, there is need to train new professionals and to encourage newcomers to enter into IT sector. Unfortunately, both on the training and syllabus levels in the field of Software Testing there is currently a huge gap between what is needed and what is offered. The current material is often obsolete or out of touch with the industry’s reality. There are a lot of different short courses on software testing tools, yet no available validated and structured training pathway (i.e. VET course or postgraduate studies). Therefore, the educational offer in this area is limited, not adapted to the real IT market requirements and, what is more, not suitable to train the newcomers. This hinders the possibility of training new software testers and blocks numerous job opportunities available.<< Objectives >>In the light of above considerations, the present project – Software Testing Academy – arises from the ambition to contribute to these emerging challenges by creating an Inclusive Academy for training Software Testers. Our goal is to develop personalised training courses to equip future software tester with the right set of hands-on and up-to-date skills to respond to the market demands. The courses will be projected to be integrated into existing VET offerings or to serve European community as a stand-alone VET training.We aim to train people that do not have experience or background in IT and thus turning them into an asset for companies that need IT technicians. As a result, their professional opportunities will be enhanced. We will particularly target recent graduated, unemployed, women and people from disadvantage background. To this end, the Testing Academy Project has the following specific objectives:-Creation of personalised training model for future professionals working in Software Testing;-Set up of a European Academy and learning tools (platform, materials, resources, etc.) that provide up-to-date training courses on Software Testing;-Promotion of the motivation towards lifelong learning, especially for vocational training of people who wish to enter the labour market of testing services, especially amongst unemployed adults, migrants and other people from disadvantage backgrounds;-Raise awareness on the job opportunities within Testing area for everyone.<< Implementation >>The Software Testing Academy project is a 32-month collaborative project that combines both agile as well as systematic and progressive implementation methodology in order to achieve efficiently the goals pursued, to deliver expected outcomes at the highest quality, to maximise the project’s impact and to ensure transnational outreach of the project results. The project action plan will be implemented based on the following implementation phases:1.Design of innovative training model2.Development of training materials, tools and platform3.Training implementation and validationFurthermore, the methodology of the Testing Academy project will follow a bottom-up and participatory approach, which means that all decisions and activities will be based on the information obtained from the environment, with the active participation of representatives of testing sector and other project target groups. Thus, the project will directly involve the project beneficiaries, that will collaborate in all stages of the project ensuring this way that the project develops educative resources and tools tailored to their needs.<< Results >>4 Project Results are expected to be achieved during the development of the Project:(R1) Software Testing Educational Pathways for Newcomers: it will outline the innovative training model for newcomers that want to develop professional career in software testing, defining the demanded skills and knowledge required by Software Testing professionals.(R2) Training materials and resources: the training materials for each training pathway will be adjusted to the individual necessities of the learner, and therefore, there will be a variation of the content and the pathway approaches. This way, the agile learning method will be followed. They will contain dynamic, engaging syllabus that cover different levels of knowledge, provide hands-on experience and cater the individual learner at the same time.(R3) Online learning platform: the platform goes far beyond the idea of learning being confined to courses and can be seen rather as a type of library, providing learning materials tailored for individualised training pathway of the learner. In consequence, the platform will be a powerful and flexible tool for learning and collaborating online.(R4) Training courses: the training courses be online and self-directed, but learners will also have support from an agile learning coach, who will do a follow-up of the learner and carry out a continuous assessment if necessary.Moreover, 5 Multiplier Events are planned. The main goal of these events is to disseminate the project and its innovative methodology in all the partners countries.In addition to the foreseen Intellectual Outputs and Multiplier Events, the most relevant expected results of the Testing Academy project are:•Innovation development and co-creation by collaborative transnational networking within consortium: it includes the creation of a European Academy and a European Learning Platform that provide training and resources to everybody who wish to develop a professional career as Software Tester. •Exchange of best practices and training: it will increase the knowledge of the partners on the learning needs and priorities within testing area and will enhance future professional’s skills to enhance their career perspective (at least 250 future professionals will be trained during the project).•Dissemination, information and awareness rising: it will promote motivation towards lifelong learning (especially for VET education among unemployed adults, migrants and other people from disadvantage backgrounds) and will create and validate the innovative training model as well as rising awareness on the job opportunities within testing area for everyone.