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EUROPEAN REVIEW

ISSUE 38 - Page 8

FEW PEOPLE CAN BE UNAWARE OF THE MASSIVE growth in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry over the last ten years. Not surprisingly, this has led to a similarly increasing demand for staff, who need to be trained. European universities have responded, raising the number of ICT graduates by 133% between 1998 and 2004; an increase from 2.3% to 4% of all graduates. The figures look impressive but if compared with a rise from 2.3% to 5% in the USA and South Korea’s 1% to 6% it can be understood why experts are predicting that there will be 300,000 unfilled vacancies for qualified employees by 2010.
The statistics seems even worse if broken down by gender; the proportion of female ICT graduates in the EU actually fell from 25% in 1998 to 22% last year. The European Commission wants to tap this recruitment reservoir. It has launched a ‘shadowing’ project with the co-operation of five leading ICT companies in which young women will accompany a successful female engineer or technologist. It would be harder to find a female rôle model at a higher level, however, as in 14 major ICT firms only 10% of board members are women.
According to EU Commissioner Viviane Reding ‘With Europe facing a skills shortage in this sector, we must encourage more women to study ICT subjects and to take up a career in this field, so as to increase capacity of the workforce and to tap into women's creative potential’.

Web sites mentioned on this page are available at:
Second Life - Front page	http://www.secondlife.com/
eVoting Project in Estonia	http://www.vvk.ee/engindex.html
eVoting page for Estonian elections 2007	http://www.vvk.ee/r07/paeveng.stml

Euro-pols make ‘second life’ too much like first life

‘SECOND LIFE’ IS THE NAME GIVEN to the hugely popular cyber-world in which real people create ‘avatars’ which they control as they socialise and buy goods and services from each other in 3D-format on their computer. Already containing branches of real-life shops and a Reuters correspondent, the internet environment may have to get used to the presence of an increasing number of political institutions. Three of the presidential election candidates in France have set up offices where they dispense pixellated pizzas to virtual voters although shots were fired outside the headquarters of far-right hopeful Jean-Marie Le Pen during a protest. Sweden has announced plans to create an embassy: ‘In order for Sweden to reach out in the world we need to work with alternative as well as traditional ways of communication’ said Olle Wästberg, head of the Swedish institute. Now the EU is thinking of getting in on the act. 54% of the 4 million ‘Second Life’ residents are Europeans, well ahead of North America’s 34.5%, and the European Commission is anxious to use any		means possible to get close to citizens. ‘We're looking at communicating through untraditional channels such as the internet and it is a very serious consideration in the reflection of our future internet strategy’said spokesman Mikolaj Dowgielewicz. On the other hand, perhaps the 60,000 Italians that frequent this online universe will not respond as expected. Some of them have already protested at a virtual tropical island bought by the transport minister Antonio Di Pietro to promote ‘political, social and economic’ debate. One avatar told a virtual reporter ‘It doesn't seem right to make this a photocopy of real life, we get enough politics there already’.
	‘Di Pietro’s island’ with protestors

Estonia blazes eVoting trail
THE SMALL BALTIC COUNTRY OF ESTONIA has become the first in the World to hold a parliamentary election where votes could be cast over the Internet. While boasting high levels of computer literacy and broadband penetration, it also requires citizens to carry computer-readable ID which made it easier for voters to participate as they already had individual PIN numbers for each identity card. Other countries, including the UK and Ireland, have tried out online voting in local elections but these systems usually involve getting a password through the post or having to go to a polling station to use a particular computer. The electoral authorities tried to counter criticism that, for instance, voting from home allowed pressure from relatives to influence decisions by scheduling the online voting to start some days before the ordinary poll and allowing internet voters to cancel and vote normally. In the end about 3% of the electorate used the new method to vote in the existing government.