On 9 February 2023, an expert panel titled Creating the image of Poland as an international educational HUB in IT and new technologies – the role of the INCUBATING FREEDOM for Ukraine – Adapting Women to Digital Economywas organised as part of the Study in Poland 2023 conference. The speakers included Justyna Orłowska, Representative of the Prime Minister for GovTech and Head of the GovTech Centre, and Dr Jarosław Protasiewicz, Head of the National Information Processing Institute (OPI).
The ongoing war in Ukraine and its ramifications, including the displacement of more than one million Ukrainian refugees to Poland, have presented a multitude of challenges—particularly in the education sector. Providing assistance to the refugees in acquiring the IT skills that are sought after in the market has become an urgent priority for both Poland and Ukraine. This has become the objective of the large-scale INCUBATING FREEDOM – Adapting Women to Digital Economy programme, which was launched in 2022 in Lublin to train 30,000 Ukrainian women in IT.
At the panel, the experts presented the core ideas of the programme and discussed the Polish government’s initiatives to accelerate the digitalisation of the Polish economy and education. Dr Jarosław Protasiewicz presented research on artificial intelligence conducted by specialists at OPI. Dr Protasiewicz also demonstrated the benefits of NAVOICA, a cutting-edge portal that can be utilised as a modern tool to facilitate IT training sessions for Ukrainian women as part of the Incubating Freedom project.
