Member Article

'Pop-up' digital agency gives 100s of Lancashire teens a taste for business

A business scheme for teenagers that recreates a digital work environment, complete with agency boss, live creative briefs, market research, script writing and film making has culminated in a business pitch and prize giving day at County Hall in Preston.

Over 200 students from 11 Lancashire schools and colleges attended the Digital Advantage pitch day. The £2,000 first prize was won by 20 teenagers from Heysham High School in Morecambe who will use the money to develop their homework app ‘Witt’ which helps students to clearly see all their homework in one place. The students already have one order from another school for the app and other schools are interested.

The Digital Advantage scheme has been running in 20 Lancashire schools and colleges over the last two years - giving over 350 teenagers aged 16-18 real-life experience of what it’s like to work in the digital sector. It is supported by Digital Lancashire and the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership. Digital Advantage has worked with creative and digital companies across Lancashire to arrange 220 five-day long work experiences placements for young people aged 16-18.

Lancashire is set to create over 5,000 new creative and digital jobs over the next five years with most of these in well-paid coding and software engineering posts. The county is a hotbed of digital business start-ups with Lancaster, Burnley, Preston and Blackburn being the main hubs. Digital Advantage and Digital Lancashire are now launching an initiative to create an extra 100 creative and digital apprenticeships in Lancashire each year.

Andy Lovatt who runs the Digital Advantage scheme said: “Many of the teachers we worked with in Lancashire feel the government focuses too much on traditional ‘EBacc’ subjects at GCSE - English, maths, sciences - whereas employers need more vocational business, media and IT skills. The digital technology industry is growing rapidly and new career opportunities are springing up all the time. We want to equip young people with the knowledge and skills to take advantage of these roles and set up their own enterprises. We’re currently speaking to a number of businesses about how they can support the Digital Advantage scheme through their CSR strategies. Over in Merseyside we’re working with a company who are helping us develop the next generation of their digital talent. I’m keen to hear from other organisations in Lancashire that want to support their local economies in a similar way.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by ROWAN ATKINS .