Cotec Foundation focuses on education for professional development in IoT

The Cotec Foundation, on whose Board of Trustees Telefónica sits, has published a report titled The Internet of Things: analysis of educational resources and business demand in Spain. It investigates the importance of the Internet of Things (IoT) in professional development, with the following aims:

1.      To analyse the importance given by companies to digital transformation.

2.      To study how the labour market is facing up to the challenges and opportunities related to the Internet of Things.

3.      To identify the level of development of digital skills in the study plans of Spanish universities.

In the business world, IoT (Internet of Things) is a key element for the development of the digital transformation. According to the survey covering 29 educational institutions and 178 companies conducted by Cotec for this study, in the coming years we will witness an exponential growth of business demand for IoT in Spain.

95% of companies believe they will be using IoT within the next three years, 76% use it internally and 61% think companies which take longer to integrate the Internet of Things will not be competitive.

The most requested profiles include those related to the gathering and analysis of data and information, the legal area and the development of business models. However, the Spanish training plans for the Internet of Things do not address the increase in the demand for professional profiles. According to this Foundation’s report in 2016, Spain did not have any bachelor degree courses in this area and specific programmes were limited. This reality can be extrapolated to the international framework. Only five countries in the European Union have specific bachelor degree courses: The United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France and Finland.

The main conclusions to be drawn from the document include the need to adapt the educational resources to suit them to the new career opportunities created by this technology.

How could this be improved?

Cotec provides a set of recommendations for implementing new programmes and contents to remedy these shortcomings. To do so, it is necessary:

1.                 To create a new IoT vocational training module

2.                  To design specific bachelor and postgraduate degree programmes for technical and business profiles

3.                  Flexible in-company training, suited to the real needs of companies

4.                 The creation of non-regulated environments for sharing knowledge and experiences