Colleges and universities have signed contracts with Microsoft, Red Hat, Oracle, SAP, National Instruments and Cisco so far this year, deputy state secretary Károly Balázs Solymár told the paper. “The goal is to sign a hundred such agreements by 2020,” he added.

The partnerships were made under the aegis of “Programme Your Future”, a government project supported with 8.2 billion forints in European Union funding that offers free IT instruction and aims to popularize the profession among youth.

“The project also plays the role of a catalyst: it seats universities and ICT companies at a virtual table where they can get to know each other’s needs and technologies. The goal is...to educate as many young graduates as possible with real market knowledge,” Solymár said.

“This requires developing cooperation between businesses and educational institutions, as well as raising the social and economic profile of the IT profession, and making it more attractive,” he added.

Hungary’s labour market is short “at least 20,000-22,000” IT professionals, Solymár said.