ORACLE

Oracle Academy, Oracle's free educational programme, aims at advancing Computer Science education and enhancing the development of knowledge, skills, innovation, diversity and inclusion in the technological fields. It helps educators of all levels (from Primary school to Higher Education) to have access to free technological and educational resources that help them inspire students' interest for IT, especially girls, enhance their curricula and provide to students further opportunities to familiarize with cutting edge technologies and prepare for studies and career in IT.

ICT teachers of all levels - primary to higher education- and students age 10+

It was re-launched in Greece in 2010 and it will continue for as long as it is needed.

Non profit, public and private, educational institutions of all levels join for free for 2 years. The educators of the institutions-members gain access to an integrated portfolio of free educational and technological resources that includes:
- Oracle's technology software and always-free Cloud services, that they can use for educational purposes and non profit research, as part of a degree curriculum.  
- curriculum in various formats (full courses, workshops, videos, projects, hands-on labs, etc) on programming, database design, application development, cloud, project management, big data, internet of things, etc, that can be incorporated in the institutions educational programme according to the educators and students’ needs. It can also lead them to taking the exams for professional Oracle certifications associated with the full course curriculum
- access to free courses of Oracle University, Oracle's training dpt, that, grouped based on professional roles, provide additional opportunities of knowledge and skills development for the students
- Last but not least, educators and students can participate in online communities, access the online library, develop partnerships, attend webcasts with Oracle experts, showcase their way of leveraging Oracle Academy, etc.

Special focus has be given to Cloud and the provision of always-free Oracle Cloud platform services and free cloud credits for 1 year, that include the first and only Oracle Autonomous Database, Virtual Machines, Storage etc,so that both educators and University students can get acquainted with this dominating IT trend, develop and test applications in the Cloud.

Additionally, the professional development opportunities for educators have evolved and adapted to modern and current conditions, giving them the opportunity to select and attend online trainings, with the support of Oracle’s instructors, that can be completed at their own pace and time.

Lastly, workshop material for Java, gives students from 10 years old the opportunity to start learning one of the most popular programming languages, Java, in a fun and creative way, reinforcing their self-confidence and helping them choose IT for their studies and career, thus increasing the number of ICT graduates that the market hugely needs at a global level. Free educational software like Alice (3D animation creation) and Greenfoot (games creation), developed by foreign Universities with Oracle’s financial support are part of the publicly available educational material.
 

Non profit associations that promote the usage of ICT in Education like EPY, HAICTE and EEPEK

Oracle employees from HR, Presales, Sales and Consulting attend various students' focused events, sponsored and/or organized by Oracle Academy to share with them information about how their LOBs work and what IT and soft skills are needed for undergraduates to have their internship in Oracle or graduates to get hired even without or limited working experience.

Greece (international Oracle programme)

Since 2010 that the programme was re-launched in Greece, more than 280 educational institutions have become members, more than 750 ICT educators have completed free trainings and 85% of higher education institutions are leveraging the free resources of the programme. Additionally, the educational software Alice and Greenfoot used in the course Java Fundamentals are included in the CS course of the 1st grade of senior high school and the 3rd grade of the Vocational high schools. 

Through the use of the educational material in the Universities members of the programme, the Java and SQL programming skills have been enhanced leading to more students doing their internship or even graduates being hired by Oracle Hellas. Both, Oracle and its ecosystem of customers and partners need people with programming skills. By enhancing the opportunities for developing such skills even from the primary school, we give young people, and especially girls/women, the opportunity to love IT and turn to ICT University studies or ICT related jobs, with the hope that in the future the gap between the availble IT jobs and the IT skilled people will not be as big as it is today.