Power in numbers - WorldSkills International’s Global Industry Partners come together

By Sally Eley, WorldSkills International

The nine WorldSkills International Global Industry Partners (GIPs), representing leading international sectors engaged with the worldwide workforce of the future, met in March to investigate how their combined presence can help further the mission of WorldSkills.

Representatives from Autodesk, Cisco, Lincoln Electric, Fluke, Siemens, Saint Gobain, Festo, Samsung and Würth met in Leipzig, Germany, the host city for the next WorldSkills Competition to share ideas and explore ways of extending the benefits of their involvement with WorldSkills.

David Green, WorldSkills Liaison and Planning Manager from Fluke explains why the group decided to come together:

“Each of our organisations is committed to supporting WorldSkills International and its vision of establishing a value for skills as the global currency and building an international skilled workforce. Our combined industry networks have a global reach into over 160 countries and we realised it made sense to look at how we could harness our collective potential in order to have maximum impact.

The meetings were very successful and we have a list of priorities to follow up including using our combined PR networks to promote WorldSkills through business and industry and developing a broader media strategy for raising awareness of WorldSkills across the world.”

Martin Williams, WorldSkills Liaison from Festo said after the event;

“Our aim was to build team spirit among the GIPs, understand what is important to each of us, and identify the priority items we need to address in order to maximise the benefit of our partnership for all involved. Two months before the General Assembly in Jeju we now have a short list of priorities that has been discussed with both the President and CEO of WorldSkills.”

New President of WorldSkills International, Simon Bartley attended one of the sessions and was very encouraged by the plans. He said.

“Our Global Industry Partners play a crucial role in supporting WorldSkills International by bringing the newest technologies to our attention so enabling us to incorporate them in our skills competitions. They also help to make the WorldSkills Competitions a reality through their cash and in-kind sponsorship. I am delighted that these globally influential companies are pooling their resources to help us spread the WorldSkills message further and wholeheartedly embrace their decision to come together. Along with the support from our Members, the Competition simply would not be possible without their support.”

For more information about any of WorldSkills International’s Global Industry Partners or to find out more about supporting WorldSkills International, please contact Sally Eley at sally.eley@worldskills.org.