Faculty 73: the Volkswagen Group is training the IT experts of tomorrow
A two-year course for young IT enthusiasts to train the future workforce who will create future mobility solutions.
Being ready for the mobility of tomorrow will require employees with specialised skills on board. This is why the Volkswagen Group has launched the Faculty 73 program, which will train its next generation of IT experts in-house. Applications, open to all interested parties – both inside and outside the Group – closed in November, and the first 100 participants will start the innovative two-year course in spring 2019. The course culminates in a junior software developer qualification and in 2021 the future co-workers will then be prepared for their careers in a promising field. In addition, they will be offered contracts for permanent employment within the Volkswagen Group.
Increasing demand for developers
Demand for professionals with these qualifications will grow exponentially over the next few years. In 2020 alone there will be a need for 750,000 specialists in information and communications technologies across Europe. And this trend is set to increase: “In the next few years the industry will be needing more software developers than the labour market and educational institutions can provide. With the Faculty 73 qualification program we want to help close this gap, at least partially”, said the HR board member Gunnar Kilian. The name of the program is a play on numbers: 73 is the 21st prime number. Its mirror number, 37, is the 12th prime number, which in turn is mirrored in the number 21, the product of the multipliers 7 and 3.
Passion is what counts
The program is geared to the Group’s in-house employees as well as external IT talents, people who have completed higher education courses, and people who have been trained in other fields with basic IT knowledge. An academic degree is not required. Knowledge of English and programming skills are desirable, but not prerequisites. The one and only important requirement is a passion for software and IT. The two course modules will provide the future employees with all the necessary building blocks for a successful career. Participants without a vocational or academic qualification will subsequently participate in an additional 12-month training period leading to certification as an IT specialist from the IHK (German Chamber of Commerce).
An ad hoc programme
Which topics will the courses cover? The main ones include programming in Java, mathematics and English for software development, the basics of technical and theoretical informatics, project management, computer networks and databases, data processing, mobile app programming and qualification projects.
In 2021, after two years of intensive training, Volkswagen will hire the participants from the first group to work in one of the key areas for future mobility; they will also receive a certificate from AutoUni. More courses of study for other fields are also currently being planned.
Source: Volkswagen AG