StandICT.eu cares about Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and their role in the ICT standardisation landscape. SMEs are often excluded from standardisation processes due to the lack of awareness, time, or financial means to strategise this important strand of activities. Yet, SMEs represent 99% of businesses across the European Union. This poses serious issues of inclusiveness and standard suitability. StandICT.eu addresses this challenge through dedicated support measures.
SME Mentorship Programme
StandICT.eu has launched a mentorship programme to walk SME experts who benefit from the StandICT.eu support through the ICT standardisation ecosystem. More experienced experts (and notably returning StandICT.eu fellows) are given the possibility to be voluntarily put in contact with new fellows, matching their areas of expertise. This one-to-one mentorship programme aims to enable new experts, who come from SMEs, to benefit from tips and advice from more experienced StandICT.eu fellows. This also gives the possibility to experienced standardisers to diffuse their knowledge to a new generation of European experts, and enable the European Union to keep a strong standardisation knowledge base for the years ahead.
Standards Upskilling
Standardisation training and awareness-raising should go beyond the sole university level, and purpose to integrate the workplace as well. A strong focus on life-long learning is paramount towards a successful European standards education strategy. Skills development within companies should concern all employees – not just IT experts, but also top-management levels. SMEs are no exception to this. Their employees should have a broad understanding of standardisation tenets. StandICT.eu addresses this issue through different means:
- The organisation of SME leadership workshops, whereby SME experts leading work in Standards Developing Organisations come in to present and discuss the nature of their roles with SMEs not yet engaged in standardisation workstreams, and encourage them to actively participate in standardisation work.
- Guiding SMEs towards the training modules developed by StandICT.eu, and encouraging their feedback on the accessed training materials in order to enhance them further for a more SME-tailored experience.