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Can higher education systems keep up with changes in labor market?

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The journal “Technological Forecasting and Social Change” has published a scientific paper of our partners from the University of Pisa, where they show how natural language processing can help in finding an answer.

We still know little about the role of higher education in the digital transformation. If on one side the labour market is constantly evolving and is asking for an upskilling process of the workforce, higher education institutions struggle to be agile enough. Therefore, it is necessary to measure and to better understand this gap.

In the scientific paper “Are universities ready to deliver digital skills and competences?“, our partners from the University of Pisa: Irene Spada, Filippo Chiarello, Simone Barandoni, Gianluca Ruggi, Antonella Martini and Gualtiero Fantoni, describe a quantitative approach to deal with this problem, focusing on the marketing sector. Through text mining, they develop a model of automatic job competencies extraction from Italian texts, using it to retrieve the skills expressed both in the exam’s descriptions of universities and the job vacancies.

The results allow to compare the skills offered by higher education with the labor market’s needs in Italy, exploring and highlighting the digital gaps existing between the two.

ASSETs+ applied a similar approach in the automatic skills analysis realized during the first year of the project: we extracted skills from job vacancies using the automated algorithm presented in the paper. The automatic reading of the description allows us to detect patterns of terms similar to the ESCO skills and formalize the proposal for ESCO.

READ THE PAPER

The ASSETs+ project aims to build a sustainable human resources supply chain for the European Defence Industry, that boosts innovation by both attracting highly-skilled young workers and upskilling its employees. The ASSETs+ main goal is to design and develop education and training programmes, from their prototyping to replication in other contexts,  to provide trainees with new skills and knowledge related to key technologies that will be expected in the Defence sector in the coming years.

Source: sciencedirect.com

Now available the video of the seminar “Introduction to cybersecurity: computer threats, network and information security”

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This seminar took place at University Carlos III of Madrid, in the framework of the III edition of the  ASSETs+ European Defence Challenge, last June 15.

Speakers:
  • Lorena González, University Carlos III of Madrid (part I)
  • Rafael Estepa, University of Seville (part II)

The ASSETs+ European Defence Challenge is an open competition to attract young talent to the Defence industry and to encourage them to initiate a career in defence-related technologies.

The organizer of this edition is Rzeszow University of Technology and the TOPIC is: “Security – threats identification and defence strategies”. Threats in the areas of: defence industry, intellectual property theft, military equipment, auxiliary equipment, information flow, data protection, military operations, border surveillance and others, in the context of security and cybersecurity.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE

All undergraduate or graduate students from all faculties in European Universities, vocational education and training centres and other institutions dedicated to education.

Participants have to write a one page proposal that must present a new usage or suggest improvements on a new technology. Not only technological, but also socioeconomic, political, ethical and environmental aspects have to be taken into account. A board of experts will select the best papers, that will pass to the second phase.

Students are strongly encouraged to team up in pairs, finding a partner in a different university or country. And they will be welcome to attend several short seminars that will help them to understand the importance of improving security and write good essays.

NEXT SEMINARS

  • Security aspects from the industry point of view, October 10
  • How to write a good report?, October 17
  • Critical Thinking, October 24
  • Literature review methodologies, October 31
  • The role of cybersecurity for defence, November 7
  • Webinar with defence experts, December 12

BENEFITS

-Participation in the EDC III seminars and webinars with industry
-Free access to the courses offered within the ASSETs+ project
-Special awards for the best three teams and the best essay up to 20 years old.
-Public recognition on the ASSETs+ webpage and social networks

REGISTER NOW!

ASSETs+ training programme: “Machine Learning for Defence”

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Registration for new courses will open soon. Stay tuned!

The ASSETs+ main goal is to design and develop education and training programmes, from their prototyping to replication in other contexts,  to provide trainees with new skills and knowledge related to key technologies that will be expected in the Defence sector in the coming years.

You can watch below the video of one of the ASSETs+ prototype programmes, “Machine Learning for Defence”, designed by our partner University of Bordeaux, an intensive seasonal school including lectures by university teachers, team work on computers and conferences by Artificial Intelligence experts. This programme is using a project based learning approach with tutoring.

To design it, the University first looked at the professional skills needed, using active learning methodologies and students practice skills as they would on real life situations.

IMPORTANT: The ASSETs+ prototype programmes are EXCLUSIVE FOR partners of the ASSETs+ consortium and associated stakeholders. If you want to join the ASSETs+ Stakeholders Group and become part of our ecosystem, please, click here.

VIEW ALL COURSES

The III edition of the ASSETs+ European Defence Challenge is open. Register now!

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A great opportunity for students to boost their careers and open new horizons. Deadline for submission: November 14, 2022.

The ASSETs+ European Defence Challenge (EDC) is an open competition to attract young talent to the Defence industry and to encourage them to initiate a career in defence-related technologies.

The organizer of this edition is Rzeszow University of Technology and the TOPIC is: “Security – threats identification and defence strategies”.

Threats in the areas of: defence industry, intellectual property theft, military equipment, auxiliary equipment, information flow, data protection, military operations, border surveillance and others, in the context of security and cybersecurity.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE

All undergraduate or graduate students from all faculties in European Universities, vocational education and training centres and other institutions dedicated to education.

Participants have to write a one page proposal that must present a new usage or suggest improvements on a new technology. Not only technological, but also socioeconomic, political, ethical and environmental aspects have to be taken into account. A board of experts will select the best papers, that will pass to the second phase.

Students are strongly encouraged to team up in pairs, finding a partner in a different university or country. And they will be welcome to attend several short seminars that will help them to understand the importance of improving security and write good essays.

SEMINARS

  • Security aspects from the industry point of view, October 10
  • How to write a good report?, October 17
  • Critical Thinking, October 24
  • Literature review methodologies, October 31
  • The role of cybersecurity for defence, November 8
  • Webinar with defence experts, December 12

BENEFITS

-Participation in the EDC III seminars and webinars with industry
-Free access to the courses offered within the ASSETs+ project
-Special awards for the best three teams and the best essay up to 20 years old.
-Public recognition on the ASSETs+ webpage and social networks

PRIZES

1st place:
– One day visit of EU institutions + meetings with Defence stakeholders in Brussels.
– Meeting with HR manager about CV and job interview.
– Technology related gift
– Diploma

2nd place:
– Meeting with HR manager about CV and job interview.
– Technology related gift
– Diploma

3rd place:
– Meeting with HR manager about CV and job interview.
– Diploma

Young students:
– Technology related gift
– Diploma

REGISTER NOW!
You can watch the presentation of the III edition of the European Defence Challenge at the University Carlos III of Madrid below:

ASSETs+ Technical Meeting in Madrid

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Last June 14-15 took place a technical meeting at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid for sharing the progress of the ASSETs+ prototype training courses.

The ASSETs+ prototype courses aim to provide trainees with new skills and knowledge related to key technologies that will be expected in Defence sector in the coming years, more particularly Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, C4ISTAR and Cybersecurity.

PROTOTYPE COURSES

Meet the winners of the ASSETs+ European Defence Challenge II edition!

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The ASSETs+ European Defence Challenge (EDC) is an open competition to attract young talent to the Defence industry and to encourage them to initiate a career in defence-related technologies.

In this II edition of the Challenge, 130 registered students from 16 different countries were asked to share their vision on the topic ‘Remote everything? To what extent can unmanned assets interact with humans in the field for defence operations?’.

The EDC II edition Awards Ceremnoy took place last Friday, with the presence of highly relevant speakers from the European Commission DG Defence Industry & Space, the European Defence Agency, the European Parliament, and universities and industry partners of the ASSETs+ consortium.

It is a pleasure to announce that the winners of the EDC II edition are…

WINNING TEAM

Andreas Wouters & Nathan Prakopetz, from the Royal Military Academy (Brussels).

Their proposal, “Autonomy in Air Defence Systems”, analyses the problematic characteristics of hypersonic missiles and how these missiles manage to evade air defence systems.

  • Download the essay here.
  • Watch their presentation here.

FINALISTS

Susanna Hein & Emilien Maquaire, from Sciences Po Lille (France).

Their proposal,  “Human-Robot teaming Research Initiative for a Combat Aerial Network (HURRICANE)”, outlines the opportunities and challenges that robotics and artificial intelligence technologies offer for future air combat by indicating how we can gain an advantage through human machine teams.

  • Download the essay here.
  • Watch their presentation here.

FINALISTS

Anaëlle Salamon from Sciences Po Lille (France) & Sinan Bekka from University of Edinburgh (UK).

Their proposal is a three-step development program of European Defensive Autonomous Submarine Systems (EURO DASS) which will follow strict principles and hopefully will set a precedent for the making of unmanned systems in defence operations.

  • Download the essay here.
  • Watch their presentation here. 

SPECIAL MENTION TO YOUNG STUDENTS

In this edition there has been also a special mention to the best essay from students up to 20 years, and the winners are:

Carlos Daniel Farias, from the University of Cadiz (Spain), & Carlos Thurn, from Nordakademie (Germany).

Their proposal “Can I trust you? An AI for secure, authenticated communication” aims to create a method of secure communication between two or more individual parties in order to allow interaction of human and machine for the application in the defence field. In order to achieve this, a combination of encryption and identity authentication will be implemented.

  • Download the essay here.
  • Watch their presentation here.

Congratulations!

You can watch the full Awards Ceremony below:

We invite you to join us for the next edition EDC III. The topic will be announced soon.

Stay tuned!

Download the press release here.

ASSETs+ Education & Training: Next Courses

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European Defence industry is struggling in finding well-suited workers to ensure its leadership, competitiveness, and sustainability. In addition, there are many prejudices about Defence activities, however this industry is always at the frontiers of innovation offering the more advanced technologies and a very international and multidisciplinary environment.

The ASSETs+ project is working to explode the myths and biases around the Defence sector and designing new courses and challenges able to attract students’ attention.

ASSETs+ Prototype Programmes

The ASSETs+ prototype programmes aim to provide trainees with new skills and knowledge related to key technologies that will be expected in Defence sector in the coming years, more particularly Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, C4ISTAR and Cybersecurity. 

With the perspective of a replication in other contexts, courses providers will gather multiple information and suggestions to improve the content and format of the courses.

The courses are designed for:

  • Professionals working in Defence and AeroSpace Industry (up-skilling and re-skilling activities) 
  • University Students (3rd year of Licence and 1st year of Master)
  • Graduate University Students (2nd year of Master)


WHO CAN PARTICIPATE
Partners of the ASSETs+ consortium and associated stakeholders.

WHEN ARE THE COURSES?
Running now finishing in June 2022.

Next Courses

IMPORTANT: These prototype programmes are EXCLUSIVE FOR partners of the ASSETs+ consortium and associated stakeholders.

Do you want to join the ASSETs+ Stakeholders Group and become part of our ecosystem?

Join here!

The ASSETs+ European Defence Challenge 2nd edition enters its final stretch

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The European Defence Challenge II edition (EDC II) contestants have already presented their final proposals addressing innovative uses of unmanned technology for defence. The jury has now the difficult task of selecting the winner teams that will be announced during the Awards Ceremony, to be held online on May 27th, 16:30 CET, with the presence of highly relevant speakers.

The European Defence Challenge is an open competition to attract young talent to the Defence industry and to encourage them to initiate a career in defence-related technologies. The challenge asks European students to propose one or more work approaches dealing with topics such as artificial intelligence, sensor technologies, autonomous vehicles, data science, cybersecurity, chip technologies, control, robotics, signal and image processing, and defence-related technologies.

This edition topic is: Remote everything? To what extent can unmanned assets interact with humans in the field for defence operations?

AGENDA May 27th.

16:30 Engagement of talents through the ASSETs+ European Defence Challenge

  • Mateo Burgos, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, EDC II organizer
16:40 Keynote speakers from the European Parliament

  • Mr Michael Gahler,Member of the European Parliament, Subcommittee on Security and Defence
  • Mr Lukas Mandl, Member of the European Parliament, Vice President of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence
16:50 Keynote speaker from the European Defence Agency

  • Daniel Mosquera, Project Officer Air Systems Technologies. European Defence Agency EDA
16:55 Keynote speaker from the Defence Industry

  • Maurizio Betta, Head of Learning & People Development at Leonardo
17:00  Presentation of the EDC II finalists
17:20 Announcement of the winners with participation of the Institutions’ representatives
17:30 Special mention Young Students’ Award
17:40 Final Remarks

  • Gualtiero Fantoni, University of Pisa, ASSETs+ Coordinator
JOIN THE EVENT HERE!

Now available the ASSETs+ Job Profiles, Technologies & Skills Roadmap

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The ASSETs+ roadmap is built around the Human Resources, one of the fundamental capabilities, together with technological means, for the European autonomy and sovereignty. It includes the most relevant job profiles, the most relevant skills for each job profile and the most relevant technologies, emerging from the analysis done by the ASSETs+ project team.

The technologies are positioned around the job profiles, considering the importance of a technology for a given job, and along the radial dimension, considering the level of maturity of a technology. In this way, the technologies, the skills, and the job profiles are distributed in four main areas, that describe the most relevant capabilities for the Defence sector with particular reference to the technological domains of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, C4ISTAR and Cybersecurity.

Access the ROADMAP here!

5G Technology in the field of Defence and Security: Capabilities, Challenges and Risks

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Our partner Mateo Burgos, from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), is organizing an interesting open activity on 5G technologies for defence. It will take place in Madrid, next April 6, from 09:00 to 14:30 CET. The event will be held in Spanish.

5G technology heralds a qualitative leap compared to LTE networks. Its extremely high bit rates and virtually instantaneous transmission open up a range of applications that represent a revolution for civil industry, but also for defence.

Recognized experts in the field will try to answer to all the uncertainties surrounding this technology in this interesting open activity next week.

You can follow the event on streaming here.

MORE INFORMATION

The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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