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2 September 2015

WorldSkills São Paulo 2015 - Big numbers add up to a big story

Infused with anticipation, emotion, glorious images and sounds, in front of an audience of approximately 9,000 on their feet repeatedly to cheer one another and celebrate with song and samba, the Closing Ceremony of WorldSkills São Paulo 2015 concluded an historic Competition. The greatest vocational education and skills excellence Competition in the world, this 43rd Competition was not only a life-changing experience for participants, but also a history-making WorldSkills event.

It is just over two weeks since the Closing Ceremony, and early statistics and data from the Competition are impressive; in many cases the numbers represent significant growth from WorldSkills Leipzig 2013. Plus, the stories and the legacy behind these numbers are sustainable and will contribute to the growth and impact of WorldSkills in future. We will continue to tell the stories of the Competitors - now WorldSkills Champions - Experts, and various Competition stakeholders over the next weeks and months. Together, we will take all we achieved and learned from this Competition into consideration for the planning for WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017, as well as to shape the way in which we inspire and promote skills excellence around the world.

As for facts and figures, here is what we know already about WorldSkills São Paulo 2015; we will share more information as it becomes available:

  • There were 1,186 Competitors representing 59 countries and regions competing in 50 skills - the largest  Competition in WorldSkills history
  • Overall, 62 of our 75 WorldSkills Member countries and regions were represented at the Competition in some way
  • The WorldSkills Conference Programme included senior government officials, Ministers, Vice Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Deputy Directors, and others from 16 countries and regions, including Belgium, Belarus, Switzerland, Georgia, India, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Namibia, Netherlands, Russia, Tatarstan, Thailand, South Africa, and Ethiopia.
  • An audience of approximately 450 leaders from industry, education, and government joined the WorldSkills Leaders Forum
  • During WorldSkills São Paulo 2015, over 259,000 visited the Competition, not only from throughout Brazil but also from around the world
  • 800 volunteers worked tirelessly to support the needs of participants and a positive visitor experience
  • Approximately 600 journalists representing Brazilian and international print, broadcast, digital, and social media were present
  • Approximately 10,000 students from 56 schools participated in the One School One Country programme
  • Approximately 8,000 people attended both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies
  • There was a live stream of both Ceremonies over the Internet. Close to 10,500 viewers watched live streaming for the Opening Ceremony; over 20,200 viewers watched live streaming of the Closing Ceremony
  • WorldSkills uploaded 25,627 photos to its Flickr site, and for the month of August there were 18,990,902 photo views
  • The number of videos uploaded to WorldSkills TV is still growing, with nearly 171 uploaded to date, and 135,166 views of videos for the month of August
  • WorldSkills TV had a total of 137,568 views on YouTube, with 272,772 minutes of video watched
  • WorldSkills Facebook had 29,283 unique views to its page during the week of the Competition (11-17 August), and a total of 39,135 view to the page for the month of August
  • The number of new "Likes" on Facebook in August was 11,874
  • The number of Facebook posts during the month of August was 235
  • The total number of people reached by all Facebook posts during the month of the Competition was 5,719,482
  • The WorldSkills website had 123,793 unique users during August, and the number of page views during the month of the Competition was 569,897
  • There were 242 "check-ins"(with 135 users) during the Competition on Foursquare
  • There were 3,015 individual tweets mentioning @WorldSkills during the month of the event; the reach for @WorldSkills during the month of the event was 54,628,548
  • There were 18,929 individual tweets mentioning #WorldSkills during August; the reach for #WorldSkills tweets during the month of the Competition was 162,542,250
  • The number of new followers on WorldSkills Twitter during the month of the Competition was 1,283