Denmark is one of the world's most digitalised countries, but despite the number of IT graduates increasing by 73 percent over the past 10 years, we are falling behind. An analysis by the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences from 2024 shows that Denmark ranks 20th in the EU in terms of the educational level of IT specialists. This indicates a shortage of qualified workforce in data science.
As part of the Danish government's digitalisation strategy, DTU Compute and four other educational institutions are receiving money to develop new continuing education courses within IT. Additionally, DTU Compute will create a forum for university-based continuing education in digitalisation and AI-supported learning; EdTech, where universities can meet and discuss how best to help businesses increase their competitiveness.
"There is great potential for working strategically with the development of continuing education at Danish universities. The digital transformation is moving at lightning speed. For our society to be competitive at an international level, we must educate our workforce throughout their lives. As a university, we have unique advantages as a provider of continuing education, as we already educate the next generations of tech talents and have access to the latest research. in this case within machine learning," says Mathilde Sjølander from the innovation section at DTU Compute.
Business-oriented continuing education
The target group for the DTU course will be IT professionals employed in small and medium-sized businesses. Today, they might take continuing education at a private company, which can quickly become very technical.
"DTU Compute's continuing education offerings for IT specialists will be more business-oriented, so they can work with AI in their company, devise new AI products or business processes based on AI. They will not develop products and services themselves, but they need to understand the connections and business opportunities and see how the company can leverage AI," says Mathilde Sjølander.
Postdoc and AI specialist Nicki Skafte Detlefsen is developing the continuing education offering. He is often in contact with small and medium-sized businesses through real cases that his students in the master's programs Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Mathematical Modelling and Computation, and Business Analytics help solve.
Through this, he has found that many businesses are eager to use machine learning / AI, but they don’t know how to implement it.
"Large companies have AI departments, while small ones often don’t know where to start. Many think that AI is magic. But in reality, it is hard work. It is something that needs to be developed and maintained, so it requires having control over your data from the start, which is what AI models work with," says Nicki Skafte Detlefsen.
"You can quickly develop a lot, but if you don’t think about how it will bring value to the company, you might just end up spending a lot of money on something that doesn’t contribute to the business. We will look at what IT skills businesses lack and how we can teach them so that AI creates value in the company."
Collaboration with HackYourFuture
DTU Compute already has experience teaching the target group. For example, in collaboration with AI Denmark and AI Boost (consisting of Erhvervshus Hovedstaden, Erhvervshus Sjælland, and the Danish Board of Business Development), the department held a workshop at the end of January where 16 businesses gained knowledge about specific tools, processes, and practices worth knowing before starting with AI. They also discussed the responsible use of AI in relation to the EU’s AI Act.
The idea is that the continuing education offering, which will be conducted in English, will be ready for the first IT specialists in November 2025, and that participants can use problem-oriented cases from their own businesses.
The NGO ‘HackYourFuture’ is a co-applicant on the project. HackYourFuture is a non-profit organisation that works to recruit international tech talents and establish partnerships with the industry. Together, they will work to attract participants to the continuing education, develop the curriculum, and evaluate the experiences.
"HackYourFuture runs a kind of junior programmer education, and the plan is that participants can later get an advanced course at DTU in an AI direction. This will also make them more attractive to businesses," says Mathilde Sjølander.
At DTU Compute's course, parts of the teaching will take place as self-study, where participants solve tasks and ask questions to the teacher through a digital learning space, ChatTutor, which is based on AI. ChatTutor is developed as a startup by people employed at DTU Compute, and the service is used in several of DTU's programs.
EdTech to strengthen strategic focus on AI-supported learning
AI-supported learning will be the focal point for the upcoming national forum for university-based continuing education EdTech, which DTU Compute has also received support to develop. EdTech will function as a community to strengthen universities' strategic focus in the area, and participants will meet regularly to discuss the results of the specific continuing education courses.
In November 2025, EdTech will use the Nordic region's largest deep-tech event, Digital Tech Summit, to promote universities' new continuing education offerings for IT professionals.
