If we can't attract young people by saying that technology is fun, how can we get them interested in IT?

"I think that many of the efforts [to raise interest in technology] that have been made so far, despite some successes, have suffered from a fundamental flaw. They have been too much characterized by a focus on the technology itself [...] The starting point is usually that technology is 'obviously' interesting, as long as you see how cool it is. In some cases it works, no doubt about it, but for many it is completely insufficient." The writer is Per Johansson, PhD in Human Ecology, who has been passionate about increasing interest in technology in society for many years.

In the post on teknikdebatt.se he further writes: "My suggestion is that organizations responsible for the problem try a different path, a path that has the human being, ourselves, as the starting point and not the technology. In other words, a way to spark interest that starts where all thinking young people already are. It's about questions like 'What is important in life?', 'What role do I want to play in society when I grow up?', 'How can I do something good for other people?

Is there a reason for us in the industry to take this to heart? Or should we tell ourselves that IT is not like any other technology ("It's so much more"), or that IT itself is so exciting that it automatically answers young people's existential questions? That it's just a matter of opening the eyes of young people, even those who are not spontaneously fascinated by computers and programming?

I have been working with ChooseIT and our other initiatives to raise young people's interest for three years now, and things are not exactly going smoothly. On the contrary, it's going downhill. What we often talk about in our IT Skills Council is "broadening the image of the IT profession", "reloading the IT concept", etc. We try to highlight the exciting, more "people-oriented" professional roles that exist: project managers, interaction designers, etc. The question is whether it helps if we do not also more clearly convey what the benefit and meaning of what the project managers and interaction designers do is. When we talk about benefit and meaning, I think we get caught in the same trap that all technology companies with recruitment problems have fallen into for decades, namely that only the benefit for the company or the company's customers shines through, which does not appeal to (technologically lazy) young people in any deeper way.

As Per Johansson points out, technology is not just a tool, but something that reshapes all our lives. It should be of paramount interest even to those who are not fascinated by technology as such. But how do we reach them? We got some ideas to work with when we had a meeting with the youth role models on the Choose IT website almost a year ago. We decided that we shouldn't talk so much about technology or IT as such being fun, but focus more on the creative result of the technology (exciting products, services), the different roles needed to develop and market the result (not just the programmer/technician, but the product designer, project manager, salesperson, etc.

But how do we do this in practice? What are the exciting products and services we should be promoting? And how do we do that? Holding up a copy of some of our trade magazines (which are certainly excellent for those already interested in technology or the industry) is hardly a winner, the hail of abbreviations and technical terms scares away even the mildly interested in technology. We need to work in other ways, and I welcome both practical suggestions and a willingness to help implement them.