There is a need to be concerned about the availability of skilled labor in Finland. Already, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the shortage of skilled labor became a severe obstacle to companies' growth and a pillar of Finland's economic growth. The skills requirements of working life are changing at an ever-accelerating pace. Digitization and the rapid development of technology are changing the content of all work. Continuous, lifelong learning is strengthened as the norm of working life. Without diverse opportunities and motivation for continuous competence development, there is a threat of falling into the competence gap.
For over five years, TechClass directly supported IT students from university students and non-university students to equip them with the necessary skills and knowledge aligned with the IT industry requirements. TechClass helped them pursue their careers in the IT industry and received excellent feedback and satisfaction percentages from the students. So far, delivering our services was limited to offering individual courses to the degree students as part of their degree programme, or online courses via our university partners' Open University Programmes.
Together with promising results, the knowledge achieved gave us confidence and helped us design more in-depth expertise material. Now our training package educates, informs, and inspires. As a result, students receive full guidance and support to prepare for various IT roles and professions.
For over five years, TechClass directly supported IT students from university students and non-university students to equip them with the necessary skills and knowledge aligned with the IT industry requirements. TechClass helped them pursue their careers in the IT industry and received excellent feedback and satisfaction percentages from the students. So far, delivering our services was limited to offering individual courses to the degree students as part of their degree programme, or online courses via our university partners' Open University Programmes.
Our strong background in providing practical online courses led us to believe we can take a step to effectively bridge the gap between academic and industrial IT by developing the TechClass Digital Academy. By generating comprehensive online degree programs, we aim to scale up our content R&D results and deliver focused, modern, fast-track, and self-paced training on IT topics. We are intended to develop practical, zero-to-hero study paths tailored for IT job positions, particularly web development and AI. These study paths will provide students valuable opportunities to pursue their passion in an organized plan developed by experts, which will support them from the fundamentals until the advanced topics and job preparation skills.