Lyon WorldSkills Competition showcases young creative talent

Last week, the French city of Lyon hosted the WorldSkills international competition. 

The event saw 1,400 competitors from 70 countries and regions display their skills in 62 different categories to demonstrate their excellence and expertise in front of thousands of visitors.

“Organising [the competition] is an opportunity to show that vocational training routes are routes of excellence,” says Max Roche, President of the WorldSkills Lyon 2024 Organising Committee.

“Most of the skills represented are experiencing labour shortages. This event can motivate young people to choose these essential and meaningful skills,” he adds. 

‘The event serves to prove that these skills know how to be innovative’

The WorldSkills competition is open to under 23s and sees participants compete in fields from jewellery making to welding and aircraft maintenance to hairdressing. 

The 47th edition kicked off with an opening ceremony with a welcome from French President Emmanuel Macron. In front of a 12,000-strong audience, the competitors participated in the Parade of Nations, marching into the LDLC Arena while waving their countries’ flags. 

Over the following four days, the competitors each had to complete a test project. On Saturday, they put the finishing touches to their work in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators in the halls of Eurexpo Lyon.

The bi-annual event aims to showcase long-standing crafts and how they are adapting to modern challenges. 

The skills on show are grouped into six categories: construction and building technology; social and personal services; manufacturing and engineering technology; information and communication technology; creative arts and fashion; and transportation and logistics. 

In the creative arts and fashion categories, participants competed in 3D digital game art, fashion technology, floristry, graphic design technology, jewellery and visual merchandising. 

Of the European competitors, the gold for floristry went to 22-year-old Manuel Bender from Austria while Stefanie Fahrni from Switzerland achieved a bronze medal in fashion technology.

Gold was awarded to Yanting Wu from China for game art, Taeseok Kang from Korea for fashion technology, Yupeng Zhang from China for jewellery, Chaehwan Kim from Korea for graphic design technology and Wing Ki Chan from China for visual merchandising.

“This event, which is unique in the world, also serves to prove that these skills, which have always existed, are evolving and know how to be innovative,” says Roche. 

“What is at stake now is to show their reality and to respond to the modern challenges of these skills in terms of employability, attractiveness and teaching systems.”

Running parallel to the competition was the WorldSkills Conference, which included sessions on AI and the future of work, foundational skills for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and UNESCO’s global skills academy centred on the advancement of skills for the future.