Black Country gets tech savvy

The Black Country Consortium (BCC) is making technology a central part of its efforts to revitalise the local economy in the West Midlands and is working with Microsoft to achieve this.

The public private organisation has a 30-year programme focusing on raising incomes and creating a thriving knowledge economy.

The consortium is made up of four local authorities - Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton - and co-ordinates various public, private and voluntary groups.

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The improvement of technology skills is seen as key to the project and so the BCC teamed up with Microsoft last year to work on boosting the employability of local people.

Sarah Middleton, the chief executive of the BCC told silicon.com: "We have to have a massive up-skilling across the board. I think [IT]'s an enabler."

She added: "We're a low skill economy. We're using IT to create a ladder of opportunity."

Following the start of the three-year relationship in September 2006, Microsoft has invested around £14m with the BCC in both financial support but also to fund training and IT equipment.

The programme has also benefited from £30m of government funding so far.

With Microsoft, the BCC is setting up around 130 local centres where people can go to learn IT skills they could use in the workplace.

One of the aims of the programme is to get as many people as possible to attain IT qualifications to NVQ level 2 over the next few years.

The long term aims are to create 25,000 more learners and bring around 60,000 more people into the workplace.

Sarah Fasey, economic development manager at Microsoft said there are people in the region who are disenfranchised due to their lack of IT knowledge and skills and this needs to change.

She said Microsoft is interested in proving "the link between IT and socio-economic improvement".