The Västernorrland County, with Sundsvall Municipality taking the lead, is collaborating to develop a common platform for all educational offerings within the county, aiming at facilitating access to education for its residents. While Sundsvall Municipality will primarily use its own data, the success of this initiative requires data from other sectors, domains and government authorities.

The meeting between representatives from the Swedish Public Employment Service's Unit JobTech, Sundsvall Municipality, and the adult education section marked the beginning of a long-term collaboration aimed at exchanging expertise and capabilities. It also involved discussions on the future directions and concrete collaboration strategies on open data for the development of a digital infrastructure. Furthermore, the idea is to collect data from various other sources that can be used, for example, for analysis and support planning on the upcoming educational platform.

The Swedish Public Employment Service is already sharing a considerable amount of data that Sundsvall can benefit and utilize effectively today. This includes historical job advertisement data for market needs and competencies, descriptions of professions and career fields, and more. Additionally, a wishlist of open data, fostering skills supply and lifelong learning in Västernorrland County was presented.

From the outset, Sundsvall Municipality focuses on open data and open-source code, while designing the platform to be re-usable by other municipalities. This work method aligns with both the Swedish Public Employment Service's and the government's digitalisation plan for Sweden's labour market, particularly its integral part in promoting lifelong learning.