Government, Microsoft sign MoU ‘to speed recovery’; €1M for startups
The Portuguese government signed a memorandum of understanding with Microsoft that it said would help speed up economic recovery.
Portugal’s government on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding with Microsoft that it said would help speed up economic recovery, with the US company investing up to €1 million in creating a ‘Highway to 5 Unicorns’ programme, supporting five promising Portuguese startups.
The tech giant also plans to hire 300 people locally, increasing to 1,500 the workforce of Microsoft Portugal, which has been in the country for 30 years now.
The declared aim of the planned strategic partnership for the digital sector now established with the government is to “strengthen the country’s digital transition strategy in the public and private sectors and speed up the economic recovery of the national market,” the company said in a statement.
Based on three strategic pillars – people, companies and the digital state – the MoU, which was signed by the minister of state and digital tansition, Pedro Siza Vieira, and the managing director of Microsoft Portugal, Paula Panarra, covers initiatives planned through to the end of 2022.
“In the area of people, Microsoft will make resources available to help people acquire skills and prepare for the labour market; in the companies pillar, it will provide tools for innovation and digital transformation and, finally, in the digital state pillar, Microsoft will help to speed up the modernisation of the state and strengthen the training of its employees,” the company said.
In the people pillar, under its Global Skills Initiative, “around 100 courses, in Portuguese, based on Microsoft, Linkedin and GitHub content, are being made available free of charge.”
The initiative “aims to train 25 million people worldwide and 100,000 in Portugal with the necessary digital skills to prepare for the labour market in the post-pandemic” period, Microsoft states. It also highlights the renewal of its existing partnership with the Coordinating Council of Higher Polytechnic Institutes (CCISP) “in the creation of Microsoft Imagine Academy, with courses that aim to promote the certification and technological training of more than 70,000 Portuguese students.
In the companies pillar, “Microsoft will continue to invest in the plan for the growth of highly-qualified human resources in Portugal [and so] it will hire another 300 people.
In addition, “it will invest up to one million euros in the creation of the ‘Highway to 5 Unicorns’ programme, supporting five Portuguese startups, seeking to promote decentralisation and entrepreneurship in the interior of the country and islands.”
It also plans to expand its existing ‘Microsoft for Startups’ acceleration programme “from the current 40 to 100 Portuguese startups, by providing free cloud technology and access to opportunities with customers.
In the digital state pillar, Microsoft will promote a skills development programme to reinforce the qualification of public administration workers, “by providing technology-based training content and holding 20 training webinars for around 100,000 civil servants.
“In the near future, Portugal will have a unique opportunity to make investments that will increase the qualifications of the workforce and, above all, develop the retraining of workers,” said Pedro Siza Vieira, the minister, as quoted in the statement. “The digital transition poses many challenges to work and the country needs to qualify the population so that it can rise to these challenges.
“I am convinced that this partnership reinforces the Portuguese state’s collective commitment to digital empowerment, which is imperative if the country is to achieve a new chapter of prosperity and productivity,” he said.
As for the Microsoft Portugal managing director, he is quoted as saying that the memorandum “reinforces our role as agents of economic recovery and digital resilience so necessary in the current context, as well as in building a more sustainable future.
“Together with the government, partners and associations, we aim to boost technology as an engine for economic growth and respond to the needs of a market that is increasingly global and digital,” he said, noting that with the MoU it was “reinforcing its collaboration with the country’s Action Plan for the Digital Transition.
