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eSkills for young e-Leaders in 8 digital hubs in Europe

MDs and CEOs of major internationals Accenture, Microsoft, LinkedIn amongst others* opened their C-suite doors this week to students aged 17-22 from high schools and universities in Bucharest, Amsterdam and Barcelona.

Industrial Engineering student, Monste Cervera from Carlos III de Madrid Univeristy shared his impressions of the day:"There is nothing like spending a day in one of the biggest technological companies in the world… It was such a great experience! I will always keep it in my mind. I had the chance of sitting in the chairs where big decisions are taken. Understanding how such an empire can come out of nowhere was my main objective with this experience. The president of Microsoft Spain, Maria Garaña, told us about the future of the company: “Mobile, Social, Big Data and cloud computing are our goal”

Over 40 companies located in eight European digital hubs are taking part in Junior Achievement - Young Enterprise's (JA-YE) e-Leaders-for-a-Day initiative. Alcatel-Lucent, AXA, Barclays, Cisco, ING, Samsung, and others will invite more young people into their offices in Prague, Dublin, Helsinki, London and Rome by the end of this month. The e-Leaders-for-a-Day initiative, in its third year running, gives young people the chance to shadow a high level business executive for one day, and introduce the student to ICT skills and digital entrepreneurship. During this day the selected students are mentored by top leaders who take them along and engage them in all their daily business activities. The e-Leaders-for-a-Day initiative underscores the importance of corporate players’ commitment to preparing a qualified and dynamic workforce for competitive Europe.

E-Leaders-for-a-Day was created to lead young people to make better informed career choices, enlarge their network, and improve their career opportunities. In 2014 the initiative is dedicated to e-Leadership and digital entrepreneurship, a theme which will be discussed at the eSkills for Jobs high-level confernce in Rome on 30 October. The experience inspires young people to be entrepreneurial by introducing them to innovative and creative solutions in the workplace. Learning essential workplace skills will make them valuable assets to future employer.

* All companies and organisations joining the e-Leaders-for-a-Day initiative are A&L Goodbody, AAA Auto, Accenture, Alcatel-Lucent, AmCham, AXA, Banc Sabadell, Barclays, BASF, Bavaria, BNY Mellon, Brabantia, CISCO, Citi, El Toro, Endesa, Euronext, E-Skills Ambassador in Romania, FFI, Freescale, Fujitsu, GE Healthcare, Google, Henkel, Hill+Knowlton, HP, Hudson, ING Bank, Intel, Jaarbeusr, Leevia, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Randstad Group, Revico, RSA, Salesforce, Samsung, SAP, SEB, SocialSharks, StartupJobs.cz, Telefonica, TNT, UBS, Visual Unity, Zurich.

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About e-Leaders-for-a-Day

e-Leaders-for-a-Day is an initiative from JA-YE Europe – Europe’s largest provider of entrepreneurship education programmes. e-Leaders-for-a-Day provides young people with the opportunity to learn from a high level executive by shadowing him/her for one day. The initiative’s goal is to enable young people to make better informed career choices, enlarge their network and improve their career opportunities. e-Leaders-for-a-Day 2014 took place in Amsterdam, Barcelona, , Bucharest, Dublin, Helsinki, London, Prague and Rome. e-Leaders-for-a-Day is organised by JA-YE Europe in partnership with Microsoft and Accenture.

The initiative is part of the Europe-wide eSkills for jobs 2014 campaign launched by the European Commission and involving more than 650 organisations across Europe including companies, associations, education and training bodies, and NGOs to raise awareness about the need to improve EU citizens’ command of work related ICT skills.

The campaign comes under the umbrella of the European Commission’s Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs, an EU-wide multi-stakeholder partnership helping to increase the number of EU citizens with professional ICT skills and boost job creation in the ICT sector.

About Junior Achievement-Young Enterprise Europe

Junior Achievement-Young Enterprise (JA-YE) Europe is Europe’s largest provider of entrepreneurship educational programmes. JA-YE provides young people in primary and secondary schools and early university with high-quality education programmes to teach them about enterprise, entrepreneurship, business and economics in a practical way.

Please visit the website for more information: http://www.leadersforaday.ja-ye.org/