Link to the Future. Youth. Internet. Career.

Young people in small Polish towns tend to choose career paths with little consideration of their own potential, following patterns in their local environment. This stems from a limited scope of ideas about possible careers, limited knowledge of in-demand professions, locally existing patterns (e.g. choosing the nearest school), a lack of vocational counsellors in schools, and limited knowledge of the job market.

Primarily in libraries and schools across Poland, high-school and junior-high students meet young, inspiring IT professionals to learn how they became successful and about the role of new technologies in their job, using the online tool 'Your Potential' (matching predispositions against a database of 130 professions). The project is financed by Microsoft under the YouthSpark initiative and by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation, and started its third edition in mid-2014.

In the first two editions, more than 20,000 students aged 15-19 participated in more than 800 meetings. 98% of participants rated the meetings good or very good; 83% said they obtained new information on choosing a profession, finding a job or starting a business; and 63% said the meetings increased their interest in studying or improving ICT skills.

The programme gives vulnerable young people an accessible way to learn about jobs and job-market trends and the role of ICT, pairing them with young professional testimonials. The main challenge faced was finding young female IT experts to participate in meetings.