8. Skills

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World market for digital media

High bandwidth digital technologies “will fuel an insatiable demand for high quality content that can be delivered to users over these channels” over the next four years.

This is the conclusion of a Government-sponsored report on the global digital media industry, which states that there are huge opportunities for countries that can position themselves at the nexus of the creative arts and digital technologies.

The report forecasts 53% growth in the global market for digital media, from $965 billion in 2004 to $1,480 billion by 2009. Within the period, the predicted annual market growth rates include ones of 105% for games, 25% for eMusic and 18% for online advertising.

Is Ireland ready to capitalise on this boom? Not quite.

The report identifies gaps and recommends 17 actions, including 11 urgent ones, to make third level courses relevant to digital media needs, to keep them relevant and to promote clustering of digital media training and production.

On general IT skills, the message is also “must try harder”. Only one in five Irish people has taken a computer course in the past three years, which puts us around the EU average.

Not a good show for an economy so dependent on ICT companies and which sees knowledge-based activities as the key to continued prosperity.

Image source: : Future Skills Requirements of the International Digital Media Industry: Implications for Ireland, Expert Group on Future Skills Needs and Forfás, July 2006

Back to contents of State of the Net issue 2