Last week we joined WorldSkills UK’s for Spotlight Talks: Inspiring Careers Excellence – a two-day event which aims to provide advice and guidance to support young people to confidently take the next step on their career ladder.
Following research from WorldSkills UK which shows that demand from employers for digital skills will continue to grow, this careers event focused on the exciting digital skills and careers that can be built from technical education and apprenticeships – reaching nearly 188,000 people.
Representing Digital Innovators, Mick Westman – our CEO and Founder – was interviewed by Will Best about his own career journey and how this led to the mission behind Digital Innovators.
Discussing his own journey into work, Mick recalls leaving school with very few qualifications and how he began his career as a Digital Apprentice at BT in the 1970s, where he worked his way up through the organisation by learning all he could whilst on the job before retiring in 2017.
When asked to summarise what Digital Innovators is, Mick said “Digital Innovators is a way for young people who may not necessarily follow the traditional pathway through education, to understand the potential they have and find a job that suits them.”
Hannah Elliman, former Digital Innovators student, also attended the session. Hannah finished the Digital Innovators Skills Programme and went onto study Computer Science at Aston University.
Speaking of her experience with Digital Innovators, Hannah said “When I started the Digital Innovators skills programme, I was at the back of the classroom and I was deadly silent, didn’t like to share my ideas and wasn’t confident at all.”
“Through Digital Innovators, we took part in a variety of projects which really helped me grow my confidence as well as my communications skills and being able to share my ideas. I had the critical thinking in areas, but I was too afraid to share them – so, that is what I really benefitted from.”
Hannah went on to discuss her experience more in depth, including how our unique Career-Fit questionnaire allowed her to see that she was capable of doing things that she didn’t think she could do and how the skills developed in our programme have impacted her current career path into Computer Science.
Thank you to WorldSkills UK for putting together such an inspiring event and for inviting us to be a part of it.
Catch up with our sessions on the Spotlight Talks, as well as some inspiring talks with Huawei, PwC, BSC and more. You can register to watch the event on demand for free here.
To find out more about Digital Innovators and the work we do to support young people, click here or get in touch.