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Cisco plans to train a total of 10 million people within the EMEA region in digital and cybersecurity skills over the next decade. In doing so, the tech giant wants to ensure that more people become digitally literate and that this will also strengthen the economy.

The tech giant’s ambition to train 10 million digital and cybersecurity experts is part of its global strategy to train a total of 25 million people in these skills over the next few years.

The main reason for scaling up the number of trainees, according to Cisco, is that currently the talent that has this specific knowledge is limited in the EMEA region. Without a strong pool of talent, it will be harder to continue the pace of the digital transition, as well as sustain it. A local pool of digital talent should also help increase social engagement and strengthen the region’s economy.

Cisco Networking Academy

Training will take place through the company’s own Cisco Networking Academy. Through this now 25-year-old training program, 17.5 million students have so far been trained in 190 countries worldwide. For the EMEA region this totals 6.3 million students in 120 different countries. This in cooperation with 5,800 partners, such as existing educational institutions or institutions offering the Cisco Networking Academy courses.

Further cooperation with Randstad

As part of its collaboration in digital training, Cisco also announced during Cisco Live! in Amsterdam that the existing partnership with staffing organization Randstad is being expanded.

The now expanded collaboration should ensure that approximately 300,000 people will acquire knowledge in the areas of cybersecurity, programming and infrastructure automation. For example, for finding a new position or to update existing knowledge.

The joint training program of the tech giant and the staffing organization is now running in the Netherlands and Italy and will be expanded to other countries over the course of this year.

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