By Caroline Vitta – TDC Community Worker with Young People.
Twelve young people who regularly attend our youth club sessions on Thursday evenings at the 67 Centre in Moulsecoomb, were excited to take part in this year’s Tech Trail as part of the Brighton Digital Festival.
The aim of the event was to help young people learn more about tech careers. It was organised by Ruth Chapman, our TDC business development manager. Ruth worked with lots of amazing tech companies in Brighton and Hove who opened their doors on different evenings and invited young people in to talk to other young people that work there. The participants also had the chance to try interactive activities that helped them to understand what that company creates, to learn more about what kind of education is needed for tech jobs and also to find out about what career opportunities there might be in Brighton.
The group went along firstly to Brandwatch, a major Brighton digital agency that monitors the conversations that people are having online. They listened to several really interesting presentations from the staff at Brandwatch who enthusiastically talked about working there and also usefully gave an insight into the education and work path that led up to their employment at Brandwatch. We were surprised that there were so many roles and that not everyone had been an IT specialist in their previous roles. And we got cool bags to take away.
It was really fun, it gave us a review of what working in that organisation is like. It also showed us how you can start with nothing and with a little bit of team work and a lot of hard work you can build this well-developed business and within the business have people with all different skills and ways of doing things. (Madi, aged 15)
We then moved on to Platf9rm, a shared working space that is full of tech companies. The group met the founders of 3plusVR who had lots of futuristic technology including a camera that can take a 360 degree photograph and turn it into a virtual reality digital model that you can navigate. A few days before the organisation had visited the 67 centre and so already had a scan of the youth centre that we could look around. Gill from 3plusVR is planning to visit us during a youth club session in November so that the group can add their own touches to this.
It was fun 🙂 I loved having the experience of learning what it is like to own and work for a corporation that helps people with social media, it was amazing how they work out things and the different little things that no one would notice if you weren’t told about it. I’m glad we got the experience (Char, aged 14)
This was a brilliant event and a real eye opener to get inside the Tech industry and see how diverse it is. I was really proud of how the group behaved, engaged with the company’s staff, asked questions and left with lots of thoughts about their own prospects.
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Read more about the TDC Tech Trail.