By Chris Johnston | Partnerships Executive
'Londoncentric' is a word bandied around in tech circles. Is the UK tech industry too heavily involved in the country's capital at the expense of other regional hubs of talent? Regardless of one's thoughts retaining to this question. What can (or at least should) be universally agreed is the importance of all young people having the same opportunities as their peers. Being excluded from what is becoming the defining industry of the 21st century due to remoteness or circumstance is an issue that should fall into the hands of all those who are able to help remedy.
Apps for Good is well placed to open doors to an industry that could well have eluded many of these young people. This is perhaps best highlighted by the regional events we host in Edinburgh and London. Both of these events are dedicated to celebrating the products that these students develop by completing one of Apps for Good courses (app development, machine learning & IoT).
Our Scottish event was held in February of this year in Edinburgh. This is Apps for Goods opportunity to embed itself in a regional hub and celebrate Scottish teams who have engaged with our course content. Since the founding of this event, we have found that some of our most engaged and active schools come from Scotland. With this in mind, it would be a failure if we did not reflect this engagement with a celebratory event for Scottish student teams. This year we had 6 different schools attend from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Argyll and Bute, Perth, Prestonpans, and Forfar. Excitingly of the 20 student products on display. We saw 9 entries that could be considered ‘emerging technologies’ being products developed using machine learning and IoT. One of these 9 was a machine learning bot that was designed to give the user an individual report on their carbon footprint and which devices are causing the highest output. It will suggest ways to improve a user’s carbon emissions by detailing which devices to use less of. We at Apps for Good have been seeing more and more products dedicated to environmental awareness and reducing ones’ carbon footprint highlighting it as an important issue in young people’s lives.
Seeing all of the student’ products on show in Edinburgh has got us at Apps for Good excited for a number of reasons; not only will we get to see these products further developed and entered into our national Awards, we will also get the chance to see a whole host of new and innovative products from student teams from all over the country.
The key importance of us offering an Event in London is its almost unparalleled position as a world centre for industry. Ultimately if we want to open doors and show young people from across the UK the doors open to them in tech London has to be part of the conversation. Without our Awards, many of these students would not get the chance to be introduced to the innovators and game changers that attend.
In the lead up to our Awards, we encourage teams from all over the country to take part and enter their tech-4-good products to be considered as finalists, if they are successful we facilitate and cover their transport costs to make the journey; student teams from the Highlands & Islands to Lands’ End have the chance to come to London. Being able to open these doors comes as a point of pride for Apps for Good. Our student teams consistently come from backgrounds of challenging circumstance and over half of our beneficiaries in 2018/2019 have been young girls. Both of these demographics are sadly underrepresented in technology, this is something Apps for Good works tirelessly to change.
On the day of the Awards, student teams get the opportunity to pitch their products to a panel of judges or ‘Dragons’, who then have the opportunity to quiz them on their products. After the pitch and Q&A, the Dragons deliberate and decide on the eventual category winner. Having the opportunity to stand in front of a room full of student teams and Dragons gives these students exposure and helps them gain key power skills needed for the future of work and education.
Until then all we can do is look forward to our annual Awards on the 18th of June, and prepared to be wowed by the tech-4-good products developed by these future change makers.
Links:
By Fergus Knight | Partnerships Manager
By Chris Johnston | Fundraising/Partnership Executive
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