Four initiatives to bring foreign-born people into the IT industry - what else is there?

IT&Telekomföretagen, Refugee Tech, Incluso and the vocational mentoring project in Småland - these are some of the actors and initiatives that are now working to quickly get asylum seekers and other foreign-born people with an IT background into the IT industry. I welcome tips on more initiatives, and more good examples of when collaboration with the Migration Agency and the Public Employment Service has worked well!

The question of how to make it easier for foreign-born people with an IT background to enter the industry is not new; four years ago, for example, a special vocational SFI course for programmers(SFX-IT, through C3L in Tyresö) was launched in Stockholm. However, the issue has become much more urgent today, with the large influx of asylum seekers last year. A number of actors are now coming together, both alongside and in collaboration with the responsible authorities, to speed up the matching of interesting candidates and IT companies in need of skills. Here I list some initiatives that are underway in the near future.

1. IT&Telecom companies: Internship and workplace in the Stockholm area in collaboration with the Migration Agency

Just before Christmas, about 20 IT companies gathered for a start-up meeting at IT&Telekomföretagen, where the Migration Agency also participated. The idea was put forward that some form of matching activity with a focus on the Stockholm area should be arranged. The idea was further developed at a meeting with IT&Telekomföretagen's IT skills council on 22 January, and a working group with representatives from Ants, iZettle, Dfind, Academic Work, Capgemini and Atea took on the task of continuing to discuss the forms of a "training and workplace" together with the Migration Agency. A major challenge is how we find candidates with the skills we are looking for, as the Migration Agency does not document the asylum seekers' background and the employees there have neither the time nor the right skills to be able to make a qualified screening. Instead, it must be through "analog" channels that the candidates are reached: announcements, oral information and the like. The working group's focus right now will therefore be to focus on finding the skills that the Migration Agency, through its informal overview, knows exist among asylum seekers.

Please follow the initiative through the LinkedIn group Matching IT Asylum Seekers Spring 2016.

2. refugee tech

A non-profit organization that works to solve integration problems using technical solutions, in collaboration with authorities, private actors and volunteers. For example, the City of Stockholm, the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Government Offices of Sweden, King, PwC and others have participated. The process is described at www.refugeetech.com, where parties who can and want to contribute are also welcome to join.

3. Incluso/Stockholm City/Vinnova

The recruitment company Incluso, together with the City of Stockholm, has received funding from Vinnova to implement a project to promote the rapid establishment of foreign-born graduates, focusing on asylum seekers in the Stockholm area with an IT background.

The initiatives above have a focus on the Stockholm region. More efforts are being made around the country, and one that is worth highlighting is:

4. The Småland vocational mentoring project

For a couple of years, the Swedish Public Employment Service and a number of Rotary associations in the regions of Västra Götaland and Småland have been working together to help foreign-born people who have gone through the various processes of the Swedish Public Employment Service to find work. The role of the Rotary associations is to provide the foreign-born with what they naturally lack, namely a professional network. In the case of foreign-born people with an IT background, 270 of whom have been identified by searching the Swedish Public Employment Service's register, they have been matched with the approximately 250 IT companies that are part of Linnaeus University's IEC cluster project.

Discussions are now underway to extend this cooperation to include asylum seekers, who are not yet in the Employment Service processes. As with the IT&Telecom companies' initiative, the lack of comprehensive information about the asylum seekers' professional background is a major challenge, and it will require closer cooperation between the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Swedish Migration Board and the refugee shelters in the region. For more information on this, please contact Kenneth Eriksson (Rotary Växjö) and Lars Hornborg (IEC, Linnaeus University).

Are there any other initiatives with a bearing on the IT sector and a particular focus on asylum seekers? Please let me know!