In order to boost the development of digital transformations through Europe, it is vital to address the current shortage of talents capable of leading the innovation needed to capitalise on advances in new digital and key enabling technologies.

This calls for a specific set of skills, which the European Commission defines as e-leadership skills. E-leaders aren’t simply leaders with digital skills – they combine business knowledge (for example, business models and strategies) with understanding of technology (upcoming technologies and the risks and opportunities of new technology) and classic leadership skills (conviction, mentoring and mediation).

Nowadays, the supply of e-leadership skills in Europe is below demand. The eLead project intends to fill this gap by creating educational material for VET professionals involved in training processes for workers and managers in high-tech/digital sector, in order to implement and promote training paths for the acquisition of e-leadership skills.

The e-Lead project activities aim at providing VET trainers, in-company trainers, experts in high-tech sector, trainers working with SME’s and start-ups, incubators and accelerators (primary target group) with specific knowledge, skills and competences necessary to promote, guide, assist, facilitate and assess the acquisition of e-leadership skills. The final beneficiaries of the project are people working in high-tech sector, in particular in SMEs or start-ups (workers, Managers, Company leaders, Key roles in high-tech companies). This aims at promoting innovative practices to reduce e-skills shortage in Europe.

The project, co-funded by the Erasums + programme of the European Union, has officially started in October 2019 and will last for 28 months.