Kerry KiddDigital Skills Shortage

Many of you have probably seen the BBC News article about the digital skills shortage published yesterday. This is something close to our hearts at RaspiKidd and micro:mag.

A lot of things mentioned in the article are why we do what we do at RaspiKidd.

People go off to study digital courses at university, whether Software development, engineering, or other IT-related courses, and find the materials outdated. I did exactly this. After spending a good few years out of education, self-teaching digital skills and keeping up with technology, I decided to go back to university to do a master's in Computing, which I never completed. I saw it as a waste of time, as I was taught skills and programming languages that weren’t used within the industry.

This is partly why RaspiKidd and micro:mag were created as I wanted to encourage kids, teachers, and parents to find relevant materials to cater to kids who have a passion for IT and digital making. Most recently I got asked to lead DundeeBots a project funded by the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) and IMechE (Institution of Mechanical Engineers) to create robotics kits and learning resources to use within Dundee schools and community groups to encourage kids into engineering and coding.

Dundee is the tech capital of Scotland, and I would be interested in speaking to local IT and Digital companies about how we could bridge this gap and encourage more kids to get excited about technology.

Read the full BBC article here