Tech Futures Day illuminates path to tech careers for Cambridge Tech Week
Tech Futures Day, the closing day at the 2024 Cambridge Tech Week, was dedicated to inspiring young people to explore a career in tech.
Activities organised by the Cambridge-based non-profit Form the Future took place at the Cambridge Science Centre and the Bradfield Centre.
Form the Future - who sponsor the Apprentice/Trainee of the Year award at the 2024 Cambridge Independent Business Awards - was formed in 2015 to address a skills shortfall, because “despite Cambridge being Europe’s largest tech cluster, engaging young people with the opportunities on their doorstep can be a challenge”.
The day began in the Bradfield Centre with an introduction by the Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Dr Nik Johnson - also a paediatric consultant in the NHS.
Students engaged with activities organised by Arm, Cambridge Consultants, Mishcon de Reya and Siemens. Tabletop activities were in place on the ground floor of the Bradfield Centre featuring Black Leadership in STEM, CASTEM Club, Centre for Computing History, Eastern Education Group, Form the Future, LumiAIres, Paragraf, PiWars Robots and sAInaptic: all the teams were responding to student enquiries about what they do and how career paths are established.
After lunch a symposium hosted by Form the Future addressed two issues: the role of AI in education, and the opportunities and the barriers to working in tech. The goal was both to attract young people into tech careers, and to encourage the tech world to open up to a more diverse range of children and young people.
The day reached its crescendo with speed networking en masse which saw 200 students and professionals meet, leveraging opportunities for both young people looking at next steps and businesses looking for their future talent.
Form the Future created the Tech Futures Day programme “to inspire the next generation into tech while providing a platform for business, academia, and educators to connect, learn, and explore how to work together to attract future talent”. The organisation posted some great stats after the event: the team facilitated 28 activities involving 40 tech partners across four different venues on Cambridge Science Park, and an incredible 98 students from eight sixth form settings across the region will attend a full day of encounters with tech industries in the near future.
Meanwhile, over at Cambridge Science Centre, teams from local schools and colleges were put in workshop situations to test and enhance their skills.
Monitored and supported by Arm apprentice programme manager Rob Leeman, the teams were given computer-based tasks to complete in a set time using equipment provided.
“There’s 10 teams in each session so it’s been 20 teams in total, all developing different ideas and products,” Rob explained in the recently-opened site at the Trinity Centre.
“We were handed a challenge and the micro:bit was one of the components, and we had to come up with a project,” said Daniel Weglowski, who was in a team with Sebastian Chapman. Both are in the lower 6th form at the Perse. “We had an hour and a half to do this rapid prototyping.
“Our goal was to make a fitness tracker using microPython and the micro:bit, and write software for something which will encourage you to exercise. So we created a fitness tracker which is significantly cheaper than other, existing, smart models that do something similar.” The prototype looked rudimentary - the display would need finessing - but it worked and it was created from scratch in an hour and a half.
“We do a lot of education outreach and this is one of many events we run in schools,” Rob said. “It’s been fantastic today – some really, really good solutions, a lot of technical solutions to the problems that we’re facing with great rapid development. We’ve got some good code and excellent engagement.”
Cambridge Wireless chair Olu Orugboh said: “I’ve been to various events and seen the great talent and great companies that exist within the community – shown here today where the focus is on driving up the level of skills and opportunity for up-and-coming talent.”
Kath Austin, Form the Future’s chief programme officer, said: “Tech Futures Day concluding Cam Tech Week is crucially important to all businesses attending the week-long event. These students form part of their talent pipeline in the future. Engaging with them now helps them to return to the tech space after their studies.
“Encounters like these raise their confidence, build out context and illustrate progression routes with relatable role models. This is how we fill the talent funnel and meet some of our ESG goals in the Cambridge cluster.”
