Porto Digital, Brazil
“Embarque Digital”
The Embarque Digital is the largest IT training and inclusion program in Recife, managing to double the number of IT students in the city, reduce vacancies in the companies of the technology park, and increase the employability and income of the students.
Purpose of the Solution
The Embarque Digital Program offers an innovative and highly impactful solution to the issue of talent scarcity in the IT sector. It is a current and replicable program that addresses the challenges of high unemployment and generational risk, with a particular emphasis on the difficulties faced by young people, as well as black/brown individuals and women. Thus, the solution presented by the program aimed to promote the qualification and employability of young people in Recife in areas related to information technology in order to: i. Increase the supply of qualified human capital for information technology areas; ii. Increase the employability and inclusion of vulnerable segments of society in the information technology field; iii. Expand the supply of technological undergraduate courses with a curriculum that meets market demands; iv. Develop a Professional and Technological Residency Program that provides practical training, ensuring immersive pedagogical experiences in technology companies. Given the objectives and goals pursued by the program, Porto Digital will benefit from qualified human capital with skills that are in line with the needs of companies in the technology park, while also becoming more attractive to potential new entrants to the ecosystem in question, due to the supply of skilled human resources.
Impact
Since its implementation, the Embarque Digital Program has presented significant results, generating socioeconomic development, income, and productive inclusion. The transformative potential of the program can be evidenced by its results, which include the participation of more than 30 IT companies, 5 Higher Education Institutions, and 1,069 students with full scholarships funded by the city government of Recife, which contributed a total of U$ 6 million to the program. As a result, the Embarque Digital Program has managed to double the number of IT students in Recife, which is already the capital city with the largest number of IT students in Brazil; reduce the dropout rate in IT courses, which was 69% in 2019, reaching a rate of about 7% in the program; increase the employability of young people, achieving more than 42% employability in the 3rd academic period; promote diversity with approximately 33% female students and 65% black and/or brown students; and increase the students' family income. These results point to the potential of the Program, which has been successful in reducing the human capital gap presented in the technology park and aims to impact about 1,700 families by the end of the program in 2024 and provide 2,000 full
What is innovative about it?
The Embarque Digital program is a pioneering training initiative that employs a bold methodology to promote social, economic, and productive inclusion. With the support of the quadruple helix - academia, industry, government, and civil society - this program has become the world's most extensive and comprehensive of its kind.
Through the Professional Technology Residency - a practical discipline in the curriculum of the IT courses offered by the program, in which students develop real challenges in the technology sector while maintaining close contact with technology companies - the program promotes closer ties between educational institutions and companies, creating curricula and pedagogical plans that are aligned with the needs of the IT market.
This methodology leads to a reduction in the skills gap, providing opportunities for training for low-income young people, focusing on increasing their employability and reducing generational risk through full scholarships for students from public schools, guaranteeing 50% of the spots for black and brown youth, as well as practical immersion in companies within the technology park, promoting productive and economic inclusion by providing these students with access to the job market, resulting in a positive impact on their families' income and transforming their reality.
Who are the main users?
The main users of Embarque Digital are young students (living in Recife who graduated from public schools and took the college national exam such as SSA or ENEM); higher education institutions partnering with the program (SENAC, UNIT, FICR, UNINASSAU, CATÓLICA); TI companies partnering with Porto Digital and the local community.
Who runs it?
The Porto Digital Management Center, that is the governing entity of the technological park, is responsible for directing the Embarque Digital Program, promoting the curation of the program's methodology and the adaptation of the curriculum matrix of the higher education institutions, as well as selecting these institutions and partner companies.