BJSS, the UK’s leading privately-owned IT and business consultancy, and winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, has announced its plan to expand its community investment partnership with Turinglab, an organisation dedicated to teaching fundamental coding skills to school children aged between 11 and 16.
The scheme has already seen over 350 children across London, Leeds, Bristol, and Manchester participate in creative coding workshops. Through the partnership BJSS and Turinglab are expanding the scheme to Nottingham and Glasgow, delivering the programme to local schools that are identified as disadvantaged, underperforming or exclusively for girls.
Turinglab was founded by Sam Green and Henry Lake in 2015 with the aim of supporting schools and other educators deliver foundational programming skills in a creative and inclusive way. Funded by BJSS, the school workshop programme teaches computing skills in a blended learning environment, combining the best of online learning and in-person teaching to provide an engaging learning experience.
Workshops are led by industry professionals (from BJSS, Turinglab, and local universities) who share their experience of the technology sector to help students and parents better understand career prospects, earning ability, and the potential applications of coding in the real world.
We are excited to be able to expand our coding programme and help children from a diverse array of backgrounds learn more about technology and the career paths on offer, ensuring that they are not excluded from Britain’s digital future.
– Stuart Bullock, Managing Director, BJSS
Stuart Bullock, MD at BJSS, said: “Our community investment in Turinglab is a fantastic demonstration of how students and businesses are collaborating to address the current digital skills gap in the UK economy. We are excited to be able to expand our coding programme and help children from a diverse array of backgrounds learn more about technology and the career paths on offer, ensuring that they are not excluded from Britain’s digital future.”
Sam Green, Founder of Turinglab, said: “We are excited to continue growing our partnership with BJSS, enabling us to quadruple our reach over last year. Our core aims with the programme are to create excitement around pursuing a career in technology, and to show students that coding can be accessible, creative, and fun too! When participating in these workshops I’m always humbled to see students discovering new ways of doing things, sharing these with their friends and realising that not only that they could work in tech, but also that they might want to!”
As part of the company’s award-winning CSR programme, BJSS also recently announced its sponsorship of the Digital Her: Inspire & Empower Roadshow, which encourages and supports girls in Manchester to expand their engagement with STEM-related subjects.
The programme, launched by Manchester Digital, will be rolled out across Greater Manchester constituencies to inspire young women in the region to pursue careers in digital industries. The roadshow will inform school pupils of the career opportunities available to them in these industries, provide them with practical experiences to help them make informed choices, and expose them to industry role models.