Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 07 | Page 95

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// INTELLIGENT VERTICAL: EDUCATION DIGITAL SKILLS TRAINING MAKING FUTURE GENERATIONS MORE EMPLOYABLE Organisations in the education sector are attempting to reduce the digital skills gap as more and more people are expected to fill digital roles in the near future. To prepare students for these roles, universities and IT vendors are collaborating to educate people in the best possible way. R ed Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, has announced its collaboration with Lord Wandsworth College (LWC), an independent school for girls and boys aged 11–18, and the University of Surrey, a public research university specialising in science, engineering, medicine and business, on the Open Schools Coding Competition, designed to inspire the next generation of coders and software developers. In so doing, the competition hopes to contribute to building the UK’s digital talent pool. The competition is now in its second year, with 10 schools and approximately www.intelligentcio.com 100 students in the UK taking part. The competition aims to engage children ahead of making their subject choices for GCSE, so is open to Key Stage 3 students. It challenges teams of students to use any free visual programming environment to create a gaming app that will help a charity of their choice. The competition enables participants to apply the basic principles of open source software development and open collaboration to solve a real-world problem in a fun and competitive environment, with the opportunity to win a prize for their team and recognition for their school. In choosing a charitable cause, each student can gain a sense of how they can use digital skills to “ OUR MISSION IS TO SPREAD OPPORTUNITY THROUGH DIGITAL SKILLS, EMPOWERING AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE, WHATEVER THEIR BACKGROUND. INTELLIGENTCIO 95