Bridging the digital skills gap in Italy, revisiting teaching through a structured process of orientation towards the critical skills of the future. This is the goal of the Digital High School, a collaboration between Leonardo, the Leonardo ETS Foundation, and the Carlo Matteucci Higher Education Institute of Rome. An initiative with which Leonardo wants to contribute, within the Italian education system, to the training of new generations, with a focus on digital skills that are increasingly necessary in the current and future workplaces.
The High School, lasting five years, is structured into a two-year and a three-year period and sees the classic subjects (mathematics, computer science, physics, combined with humanistic skills for the development of critical thinking) joined by new disciplines such as Artificial Intelligence, digital systems and robotics, to provide students with solid foundations that can be immediately used both in continuing their studies and in the world of work.
The courses are supported by experts from Leonardo's Electronics business area - Marco Barbina, Christian Giusti, Silvio Mazzaro - who, since the beginning, have contributed to the success of the initiative, holding classroom courses, guiding boys and girls in project activities, and also supporting teacher training.
Started as a new course of study at the Carlo Matteucci Institute in September 2022, with a single section, the current III A class, the Digital High School now has four other classes (two first and two second), for a total of about 120 students.
In recent days, the III A students had the opportunity to get to the heart of the skills, technologies, and capabilities of Leonardo's Cyber & Security Solutions business area, at the headquarters in Via Laurentina in Rome. Here they visited the showroom and participated in a meeting on Artificial Intelligence. For everyone it was a precious opportunity – also thanks to the testimonies of young new hires – to imagine and build their own professional future in a highly technological sector with great development prospects.
