Proact helps increase youth employment in the Oulu region
In addition to providing virtualisation solutions for the City of Oulu, experienced IT service provider Proact is also offering internship and dissertation opportunities for the city’s youth.
As part of the city's development strategy, Oulu is engaging in innovative procurement methods in order to advance youth employment. Oulun Tietotekniikka (OTT), the enterprise which is responsible for the city's information technology services, has applied a specific procurement criteria regarding framework agreements on virtualisation solutions.
"We require our selected suppliers to commit to providing at least one work-based learning, internship or dissertation position for technology students every year during the agreement period,” says OTT's Service Director, Marko Niskala.
“Without such opportunities, technology students would not be able to obtain qualifications, which is a key factor when it comes to decreasing youth unemployment and social exclusion.”
After being awarded the contract, Proact undertook its obligations which included the introduction of two interns. By completing internships at Proact, both young individuals will be able to learn from the infrastructure and cloud service provider’s 20+ years’ experience in the field, gaining knowledge to help them with their future careers.
The intern for the first year of the agreement was a data centre student from the Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, who performed their duties in an outstanding fashion, receiving valuable experience during their time at Proact. A second intern has already been selected and will soon commence their internship in Oulu.
Reliability and efficiency through virtualisation
Proact is providing the City of Oulu with server and desktop virtualisation under a four-year framework agreement. The new duplicated server virtualisation platform will further increase the reliability of the city's IT, drawing on Proact’s heritage of delivering successful infrastructure projects.
"Partnership choices are key in ensuring the continuity of vital functions. The duplicated environment we have built with Proact will ensure that our critical infrastructure has a high degree of reliability and functionality," Marko Niskala comments.
The transition from traditional terminals to virtual desktops run on tablet devices has improved service quality. Additonally, according to Marko Niskala, the users of public terminals have provided direct, positive feedback. The city's employees have been pleased with the single sign-on features of virtual desktops which have eliminated the need to sign onto multiple systems, therefore improving efficiency.
"The main objective for us was to find a partner with whom we could develop our operations collaboratively. We are pleased to be able to say this objective has been met," Marko Niskala states.
Proact has already proven itself a reliable partner during previous collaborations. The company began working with the City of Oulu in 2006 with the delivery of a verification system.
For further information, please contact:
Jason Clark, CEO and President, Proact IT Group AB, tel 44 1246 266300
Peter Javestad, Vice President / IR, Proact IT Group AB, tel 46 733 56 67 22, peter.javestad@proact.eu
About Proact
Proact is Europe’s leading independent datacentre and cloud services provider. Proact supplies business benefits by helping companies and author-ities to reduce risk and costs, and above all to supply them with flexible, accessible and secure IT services. Proact’s cloud service operations manage 70 petabytes of information. Proact has completed more than 3,500 successful projects all over the world to date.
The Proact Group has more than 800 employees and operates in 15 countries in Europe and in the USA. Proact was founded in 1994, and its parent company Proact IT Group AB (publ) has been listed on Nasdaq Stockholm under the symbol PACT since 1999.
For further information about Proact’s activities please visit us at www.proact.eu
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