The European Commission awarded a four-million-euro CoVe-grant to Colleges for European Datacenter Education (CEDCE) in December 2023. CEDCE is a consortium of educational institutions and industry partners throughout Europe that aims to bring datacenter education to a higher level. This grant enables CEDCE to do that through building regional, national and international knowledge transfer ecosystems. Adri Mertens, project leader: “We are honored that the European Commission granted us the money to execute our plan and are looking forward to the four coming years. We want to thank our partner Google for believing in and supporting this project from the very beginning.”
The datacenter industry is rapidly gaining ground in Europe and the world due to the ongoing process of digitalization. This results in a high demand for employees that are now flown in from all over the world. With this grant CEDCE will create educational excellence in datacenter education from vocational to higher education close to the datacenters which are often situated in rural areas. Through collaboration with industry partners the curriculum is aligned with the demands of the industry and stays on top of innovations. Therefore, the graduates can easily be employed at datacenters in the region, which adds to regional development. Mertens: “As CEDCE prepares young talent for future-proof jobs, local communities benefit from the large employment demand of the industry. This way, through CEDCE, they can strengthen each other.”
The collaboration started in 2019 when consortium partners gathered during a Google Cloud Connect meeting in Dublin. After days of brainstorming, they decided to work out a project plan. This has expanded ever since, leading up to the project plan and consortium we have today. CEDCE now includes eight educational institutions (Alfa College, HELHa, ATU, ITCF ETLA, EKAMI, Mercantec, UCL and FMS) and over 40 industry partners, that are based in The Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, Finland and Portugal. Wendy Peterson, Google Program Manager, Data Center Global Workforce Development: “Data centers are the engines behind many of the products and services we use every day and ongoing innovation is critical to meet the demand. This program sets up the next generation of talent to continue moving the data center industry forward. We are proud to have been part of this collaboration from the beginning and now look forward to seeing the program come to life.”
The coming months are used to coordinate and prepare the launch of the project in March 2024. From then onwards, CEDCE is committed to expanding the datacenter curriculum, create a skills ecosystem and bridge the gap that currently exists between business demands and education. Industry partners and educational institutions that are interested in joining the project are invited to get in contact with Adri Mertens.
Read more at: www.cedce.net