Nicastri: a program to implement digital skills is ready
"The hacker attack claimed by the NoName057 collective, which in the last few hours has hit various institutional and corporate sites in our nation, represents yet another sign of how much the issue of cybersecurity has become a priority for all of us. The timing of the pro-Russian group's offensive – underlines the president of Aidr, Mauro Nicastri in a note – which took place a few hours after the visit to Kiev by the President of the Council of Ministers Giorgia Meloni, and the object of the sites that came under attack, the Ministry of Defense and the Carabinieri in primis, are emblematic of how far the war is moving also in terms of IT security. The control measures – continues Nicastri – they held up, but what happened must prompt us all to reflect on the need to strengthen the actions in support of the promotion of the culture of information security and digital skills. Italy, in fact, according to the latest estimates of the DESI 2022 report (index of digitization of the economy and society) of the European Commission, is still below the European average. Despite the efforts made in recent years to bridge the gap, there is still a gap in basic digital skills and ICT graduates and in the provision of digital public services for citizens. The need to know how to use digital tools with awareness and a critical spirit is therefore – underlines Nicastri again – a priority that can no longer be postponed. For this reason, the Aidr association, which has been committed to spreading digital culture in our nation for years, has presented a program aimed at promoting and spreading the importance of digital skills, established as part of the European year of skills announced by the President of the EU Commission Ursula Von der Leyen in her end-of-year speech on the state of the Union 2023. In collaboration with the European Parliament and Commission, the initiative, for the first time with respect to the member countries of the European Union, will see the involvement of students, public administration and company employees, with whom in-depth sessions on the major issues of digitization will be addressed: cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, Metaverse, Big Data, IoT. The topics that will be covered will have an introductory part, a focus on the new digital professions and one for organizational use. The structure of the initiative will consist of: a testimony from a public administration and/or company manager, a practical and theoretical insight into digital skills and a virtual reality exercise."