AMERICAS - the new initiative to foster ICT cooperation between the EU and Latin America

EMF is partner in AMERICAS, the third of a series of EU FP7-ICT funded projects to reinforce ICT cooperation between EU and Latin America. The project aims at supporting sustainable ICT policy dialogues and fostering ICT R&D cooperation between the EU and strategic partner countries in Latin America, by enabling new synergies and effective collaboration through policy makers, researchers and key stakeholders networks, including e-infrastructures. The AMERICAS project covers all countries with a bi-lateral S&T Agreement with the EU (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico) plus Colombia.

Key activities foreseen to reinforce the ICT cooperation between EU and Latin America:
•    One-day Master Class in each Latin America target country (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Colombia) to familiarise potential partners with EU funding mechanisms.
•    Two Project Angels summer schools to reinforce the existent Project Angels Network in Latin America.
•    Support of the ICT policy dialogue between the EU and Latin America through an Annual ICT Forum, the first being scheduled for 16 March 2012 in Santiago de Chile.
•    Develop synergies between e-Infrastructures and ICT activities in Latin America

Visit the Americas website

A new project to investigate the skills and competences needed for Ambient Assisted Living jobs

A recently started project (CompAAL) investigates the skills and competences neededfor Ambient Assisted Living related jobs.  The ageing society will need a lot more specialised jobs than exist today. New skills profiles have to be set-up for professionals from various backgrounds, for example architects building AAL compatible homes, staff of ambulatory home care, and most of all IT specialists in order to enable them to design AAL systems and interfaces, to manage interoperability, as well as to create, manage and moderate social networks.

The project is funded by the Lifelong Learning programme of the European Commission. During 24 months CompAAL will generate:

• A set of defined professions in the field of ambient-assisted living;
• National qualification profiles in the field of professions in ambient-assisted living described by learning outcomes that will lead to
• Comprehensive European qualification profiles;
• Guidelines for training institutions complying with the principles of the ECVET

More information on CompAAL
More information on e-Jobs in Europe

Language needs of businesses - Round Table 30 Jan 2012

The CELAN project investigates the language needs of businesses and provides solutions to language strategies. The Round Table is geared at businesses, business representative organisations, language service and technology providers, training institutions, etc. It will discuss where market meets training and what should be done in the future to improve competitiveness and employability through language strategies.

The Round Table is followed by the meeting of the Business Platform for Multilingualism on Tuesday, 31 January morning. For more information, have a look at the programme.

Download the draft programme
See the list of speakers