Over the past month, TeenTech with the Lancashire Digital Skills Partnership (LDSP) has delivered TeenTech Innovation Live (for students aged 11-19) and TeenTech City of Tomorrow Live sessions (for students aged 8-13) to hundreds of students across Lancashire!
Due to the success of the programme and continued demand from young people, teachers and parents, TeenTech and LDSP are delighted to announce that they are making these sessions available again during half-term, as well as a few extras! These include:
Families or schools can register for these free sessions here: http://teentech.com/live/lancashire
Sessions will be available to re-watch for five days following their broadcast.
Maggie Philbin OBE, CEO of TeenTech, said: “We’re so proud of these sessions which put the fun back into learning and help students clearly see how they could be the innovators of the future. We want children to understand they don’t need to be in Silicon Valley or London to have exciting careers. There are companies right here in Lancashire crying out for these skills. And of course, students could turn their own idea into their own company. It’s been so good to see the feedback from students, parents and teachers saying how much the students have learned and most importantly how much they’ve enjoyed them.”
Dr Michele Lawty-Jones, Director of the Lancashire Skills and Employment Hub, commented: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Maggie Philbin, the TeenTech team and local partners to bring inspirational activities to young people and their schools and families across Lancashire. The activities bring ‘STEM’ – science, technology, engineering, maths – skills alive and enable young people to get creative. This forms part of our drive to excite young people about the fantastic job opportunities across Lancashire’s industrial base – from software engineers, to design engineers to specialists in SMART technology. We want to give young people a boost to their aspirations, addressing the negative messages associated with the pandemic – there are still many exciting job opportunities for young people to pursue.”
During the TeenTech Innovation Live sessions, you could watch talks with a Planetary Scientist on space, look at how we can make our homes and cities smarter with experts from BT or look at the fast-changing music industry with the lead singer of White Lies, a BBC radio DJ and television presenter and local UCLAN Music Innovators. In the Future Technology session, you will even learn about robots used in our operating theatres in Lancashire! In the Environment session, there will be discussion on how we can tackle global warming and other environmental issues with a Climate Change Scientist, and in the Cybersecurity session, featuring an ethical hacker as a guest, consideration is given on how to raise awareness of cybersecurity issues and prevent hacking.
Each TeenTech Innovation Live session includes a challenge too. These range from creating short animations (set during the Animation session with guests from Aardman, who created Wallace and Gromit here in Lancashire) to creating a videogame that pushes innovation and promotes accessibility and inclusivity (set during the Game Design session with BBC Click’s Kate Russell).
Even though these sessions are replays, students can still develop projects in response to the challenges. The guests will then come back together for a special Feedback Session the following week looking at all the projects and providing feedback as industry experts! And answer many of the questions submitted during the broadcasts.
It is hoped the projects will also encourage students to enter the TeenTech Awards!
The TeenTech City of Tomorrow Live sessions allow young people to consider how we might live, work and play in the future! They tackle big, global challenges and local issues, and design safer, smarter, kinder buildings.
There have been some incredible ideas submitted so far by Lancashire’s young people and students in response to the City of Tomorrow sessions. They have built models from recyclable materials that have wowed experts from companies such as BT, Atkins, Rolls-Royce and Sprinklr. Students have also developed amazing CAD designs, and Minecraft buildings, that have been shown during the previous live feedback sessions.
All these sessions are fun, safe, and interactive. Lancashire’s young people have asked some incredible questions, and submitted project ideas that could really change the world!
In addition, on Friday 26th February, TeenTech with the LDSP will be holding the first Lancashire Showcase event which will celebrate all of the projects that have been submitted by local students, including from these half-term sessions.
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