IT creates political engagement among young people

Digital inclusion Innovation Skills supply Education and training
We in the industry know that IT is a tool to solve problems. The challenges don't have to be technical in nature for IT to do the job, but can be about everyday problems that we all face. But the stereotypical image of IT as a pure "technology thing" persists outside the industry. That's why IT&Telekomföretagen, together with IBM, IFS and Tieto, challenged three eighth-grade classes to take part in the We can make IT competition. The competition was conducted as a pilot project with the ambition to involve more companies and schools in the coming years. The aim is to use a specific theme - this year's theme was to increase involvement in politics - to increase young people's interest in IT and at the same time change the image of what IT can be used for.

On Wednesday, members of the winning team, Raqio Shire, Dilara Arikan and Issra Dziripresented their contribution in connection with Järvaveckan. The students attend Kista primary school and, with some support from the companies involved, have developed a game to get more young people involved in politics. It is an interactive computer game set in a dystopian future where no one is interested in politics. The game shows how wrong things can go when no one gets involved and how this affects democracy.

The students' solution impressed the jury not because it was necessarily technically advanced, but rather because it was a smart and effective way to help more young people understand their own potential to influence society.

- Many young people today are not interested in politics and rarely watch news programs on TV or read newspapers. New ways of getting them interested in politics may be needed, and the internet and new technologies play an important role in this. By building an interactive game, we wanted to create interest in politics and democracy in an environment where many young people feel at home and want to talk to each other," says Raqio Shire.

According to the students themselves, their own interest in both politics and IT was also affected during the project. The contact with the companies was also appreciated.

- Now that we know more, it's easier to see what difference you can make," says Dilara Arikan. "It was also great to get help from the companies in how we could think when we developed our solution.

Mr. Per Åsberg from IFS concluded the presentation by talking about the survey conducted among the participating students.

- At the start and end of the course, we asked students how many agreed with the statement "IT is mostly about knowing programming". The results are striking. Before we started the project, 70 percent answered yes to the statement. After we worked together on the project, the figure had dropped to 49%. It clearly shows that this type of initiative both nuances and improves the image of what IT is about," says Per Åberg. "We are also pleased that the proportion of girls who answered 'yes, definitely' to the question about studying technology or IT at university increased from 5 to 31 percent.

The Swedish IT industry's acute shortage of technical excellence requires a major effort. Of course, the We can make IT competition will not solve the problem. But it is clear that if more people have a better understanding of what IT is, how it can be used and what benefits it can bring, more people would choose to work in the industry. Therefore, the project will continue with the goal of both involving more companies and reaching more schools so that more young people have the opportunity to understand what a fantastic industry we work in.