About SFIA and the SFIA Foundation

What is the SFIA Foundation?

• The SFIA Foundation is a global not-for-profit organization dedicated to overseeing the production and use of the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).
• Our purpose is to enable greater capability and capacity within the global digital workforce.
• We believe that the sharing of knowledge and expertise is key to driving innovation and progress in the industry, which is why SFIA is designed to be a shared resource for employers, educational institutions, professional bodies and individuals alike.
• Net income generated is re-invested in continuously developing the SFIA Framework and supporting the global SFIA Ecosystem.

Openness, collaboration and interoperability

• We believe in the power of openness, collaboration, and knowledge sharing to drive progress in the technology industry.
• That's why our framework is openly accessible to all employers and professionals worldwide, to support skills and career development.
• You can think of SFIA as an open-source project for professional skills.
  • We welcome contributions from the wider community to ensure our framework evolves with the needs of the industry.
  • Because SFIA is not proprietary to specific vendors or industry bodies - anyone can provide feedback, suggestions, and contributions.
• The shared language of SFIA enables better collaboration, communication, skills and career development across all professional disciplines fields related to digital, data, and technology.
• SFIA is not technology-specific. This approach supports an industry where organizations and individuals use multiple technologies and a variety of methods and tools to run their business.
• Developing and maintaining a skills framework takes a lot of time, money and effort.
  • By using SFIA as a shared and open resource, organizations can focus their efforts on ensuring their employees have the right skills, at the right level, to meet their changing business needs.

Why choose SFIA?

• Unlike many other frameworks, SFIA is open and accessible to all.
• For most employers and all personal users, there are no fees or subscriptions required to access the content.
• The framework is easy to access and not encrypted in a way that limits printing or copying.
• Updates to the framework are made transparently, we don't do "behind closed doors" updates.

How does the SFIA Foundation work

Purpose - To enable greater capability and capacity within the global digital workforce.

Our strategic imperatives are:

1. Active stewardship of the global skills and competency framework and its ecosystem to meet the needs of professionals and employers.
2. Increase visibility and adoption of SFIA globally
3. Facilitate effective use and consumption of SFIA via an engaged community and supporting ecosystem.
4. Ensure sufficient and sustainable funding to deliver the strategic imperatives.

Governance and guidance:

• The SFIA Board provides governance to the Foundation.
• The SFIA Council provides guidance, advice, and support with regard to strategic direction and technical input.
• The Global SFIA Design Authority Board is responsible for framework integrity and overseeing the content of new releases of SFIA.

Support for End Users:

• The SFIA Accredited Practitioners, Consultants, and Partners provide support to SFIA end users.
• The SFIA User Forum facilitates general exchange of information between SFIA users.

Increasing adoption of SFIA:

• Easy access and global usage have already led to SFIA adoption in over 180 countries.
• Our focus is on building a strong community to support SFIA adoption by:
  • Building relationships with employers, government agencies, and professional bodies.
  • Fostering a network of SFIA Accredited Partners and Consultants.
  • Providing resources such as translations and mappings to industry frameworks and bodies of knowledge.
  • Hosting user webinars and having a presence on LinkedIn.

Translations:

• SFIA 8 has been translated into 12 languages. It is published in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Canadian French, Russian, and Arabic.
• A partial translation is available in Dutch.
• The SFIA user community has led, contributed, and reviewed these translations.

From SFIA Foundation - How we work 

Our business philosophy is simple - the aim is to make the framework as freely available as we can:

The corporate members of the SFIA Foundation have provided funds to establish SFIA, but are not permitted to take dividends from the Foundation. Any money collected by the Foundation can only be used for the benefit of the framework and its users.
We are committed to maintaining SFIA as an effective management resource by an open process of public consultation.
SFIA is available free of charge to most companies and individuals who use SFIA purely as an internal management resource; they cannot distribute SFIA information or exploit SFIA commercially.
A modest annual fee is required from individuals and companies who exploit SFIA by using it to support the sale of their products and services. These are our valued partners and consultants.