The main problem faced by Spain’s technology firms today is the dearth of talent, a fact that clashes with the country’s sky-high unemployment figure. This reflection was made by Pedro Mier, president of the Spanish Association of Electronics, Digital Contents and ICT Companies (Asociación de Empresas de Electrónica, Tecnologías de la Información, Telecomunicaciones y Contenidos Digitales; Ametic) during the presentation of the 1st Forum of the Alliance for the Development of Digital Talent (I Foro Alianza por el Desarrollo del Talento Digital), organized by AMETIC itself with the collaboration of Red.es and the support of Spain’s cutting-edge digital-economy firms, concerned about how to solve this problem, including GMV, Microsoft, Samsung, Google, Amazon...

Pedro Duque, Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, was present at the inauguration together with the Secretary of State for the Information Society and the Digital Agenda, Francisco de Paula Polo, and the coordinator of the Digital Economy for Spain in the European Commission, Anna Armengol.

Each one of them gave their take on the current situation. Anna Armengol, in particular, came out with the shocking fact that there are now 12,000 outstanding vacancies in Europe calling for ICT skills. In light of this she called for “European-wide talent-promoting strategies". The situation is similar inside Spain and the AMETIC president agreed on the need of “acting at school and family level” and especially encouraging girls to take up these careers, thereby winning women a fairer slice of the sector. Indeed, figures now to hand point to a glaring gender gap: for example, only 20% of STEAM graduates (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) are women. Pedro Mier therefore advocated “working at base education and career guidance”.

For his part, the Secretary of State for the Information Society and the Digital Agenda, Francisco de Paula Polo, argued that “Spain should be a place where any person with a great idea can bring it to fruition, regardless of the resources he or she has to play with”. He therefore stressed the need of implementing policies designed to make Spain “a honey pot for talent” drawing in entrepreneurs from all around the world “to kick off and join in groundbreaking projects, making our country a trailblazing nation”.

Chiming in with this mood, the Science Minister Pedro Duque pointed out that Spain’s innovation investment rate “is lower than it should be in relation to its resources”. He underlined the “commitment with the European Union” in this field and the need of “reaching agreements” to boost Spain’s R&D investment level and set up “new R&D centers that are more efficient than elsewhere”. He also affirmed government support “for the training of budding talent in information technologies”. “Universities need to be efficient in their structures. Investment in universities, science, technology and innovation has to be racked up to higher levels”.

The next to speak at the forum was Richard Gerver, one of the world’s most influential figures in technological innovation and education, who declared that today’s youngsters are the most talented generation of all times. He went on: “there is no need to teach them how to use technology because they are digital natives. What they need to be taught is how to harness it to seek solutions to today’s pressing problems and thereby change the world”.

The business world put forward how to rise to the challenge of seeking and training up digital talent. GMV is a clear example of this, a 1600-strong Spanish technology multinational; 80% of this staff hold higher technical degrees and are carrying out technological projects for major client around the world, and always with an eye out for increasing their digital talent. Javier Zubieta, Marketing and Communications Manager of GMV’s Secure e-Solutions sector, pledged the company’s commitment to this “talent revolution” in the debating panel “Spearheading the Digital Transformation”, hosting an interesting workshop to bring home the type of highly-skilled cybersecurity talent that GMV constantly seeks and finds.

This first digital talent encounter in Spain is an essential step in raising awareness and spurring on action by all digitalization stakeholders, making sure Spain’s industry is capable of spearheading the digital transformation.