In an afternoon not to be missed, 150 students, academics and employers came together this week for the autumn 2020 Tech Industry Gold student / employer event.
Designed to give students unique insights and connections with employers, these twice-yearly gatherings are a core part of the student experience for undergraduates on Tech Industry Gold accredited degrees, and a direct contributor to their outstanding employment results. With this being the first online Tech Industry Gold student / employer event, we were pleased to also be able to extend a welcome to degree apprentices for the plenary part of the event.
An action packed three hours developed the themes of technology, business and personal transformation, including:
- The inspirational story of the Mayflower Autonomous Ship from IBM’s Chief Technology Officer, Distinguished Engineer and Master Inventor Andy Stanford-Clark. Powered by AI and energy from the sun, this project pushes technology to its limit to create the first unmanned ship to cross the Atlantic.
- A live tour of BT’s incredible Innovation Centre, showcasing cutting edge technology developments and exploring the benefits they can bring to consumers and business.
- Industry leaders from Gousto, NHS Digital and EY discussing their experiences of business transformation through Covid-19, ranging from scaling up to serve meals to feed the nation, to how technology is supporting the NHS, to the urgent development of a border testing system for the island of Jersey.
- Roundtables for students to talk informally with employer panels to understand what employers care about in graduate recruitment and how to boost their employment prospects. Managers from Aviva, Bank of America, Capgemini, CGI, FDM, Ford, Fujitsu, Global, IBM, Matalan, Oracle, P&G, TCS, TikTok and VMware generously gave their time, with open, candid insights.
A further highlight of the day was the prize giving for the winners of the autumn inter-university Tech Industry Gold student team challenge, and the award of a rich array of development opportunities to students who impressed employers during the event – details of both are below.
The spring event will take place on 17th March 2021. Another unmissable experience is already in development!
“It was an honour to host my first Tech Industry Gold event. I was inspired by our phenomenal range of speakers sharing their stories of technology and business transformation through 2020 and I was blown away by the digital talent showcased by the Autumn Competition winners. It was also great to see so many employers, with strong representation from our Alumni community, sharing insights and opportunities to help guide and support the current students as they look to the future. Spring Event March 17th is a definite date for the diary!”
Tom Lovell, MD, Tech Partnership Degrees
Autumn Tech Industry Gold Event student prizes
| COMPANY | HOST | STUDENT WINNER |
UNIVERSITY | |
| Vice-President for the Day | ||||
| VMware | Colin Bannister, VP Solution Engineering | Adya Aggarwal | Queen Mary | |
| Day with a Dev | ||||
| Valitudo | Adam Hazem, CEO | Camilo Pires | UWE | |
| Amazon Vouchers | ||||
| Intersystems | Hannah Stone, Marketing Co-ordinator | Luke Eason | Loughborough | |
| ‘Company Cuppa’ (30-minute chat) | ||||
| Ablemove | Josh Wintersgill, Entrepreneur | Cameron Duff | Loughborough | |
| AWSM | Luke Thomas, Chief Operating Officer | Laura Rodwell | UWL | |
| Bain | Brendan O’Rourke, Expert Vice President | Amy Yapp | UWE | |
| FDM | Rod Flavell, CEO | Toby Oates | Loughborough | |
| Fujitsu | Nicholas White, Head of Junior Talent | Nino Matozan | Queen Mary | |
| Fujitsu | Victoria Ward, Head of Central Services | Cameron Duff | Loughborough | |
| Fujitsu | John Lockwood, Head of DevOp | Graeme Whyte | Glasgow Caledonian | |
| IBM | Andy Standford-Clark, Chief Technology Officer | Jan Pilar | Northumbria | |
| IBM | Matt Rigby, Agile Coach | Amy Yapp | UWE | |
| Matalan | Natasha Rhodes, Domain Architect | Graeme Whyte | Glasgow Caledonian | |
| TCS | Anshoo Kappor, Head of Early Talent | Camilo Pires | UWE | |
| TikTok | Clare Tomkins, University Recruitment Lead | Caitlin Christie | Northumbria | |
| Valitudo | Adam Hazem, Founder & CEO | Camilo Pires | UWE | |
Autumn Tech Industry Gold student team challenge
Focused on digital exclusion, this season’s challenge was to create a tech solution to help more people to be more connected in our rapidly changing world. Thanks go to the students for their creativity, their Course Directors for their encouragement, and the judges from Ablemove, Air Products, Arrow, AWSM Technologies, Capgemini, Bank of America, Global, P&G and VMware.
“The quality of the ideas and presentation always blows me away in these events. It’s a testament to the course. I was particularly impressed at the first years who have just started their courses and are already picking up on things such as Business Canvas, Design Thinking, Standups and other real-life methods for doing this type of activity. Really well done to all the teams.”
Joe Macauley-Yeoman, Global
Winning teams were as follows:
First years
- 1st: Queen Mary University of London with traVeRse
- 2nd: Lancaster University with EduEverything
- 3rd: University of the West of England with Follow Me
The winning team from Queen Mary tackled the problem that we have all been facing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many people have been far away from loved ones, their routines, travel opportunities and enjoyment in many forms. The team focussed mainly on virtual travelling which they called traverse designing new concepts to boost positive moods.
Second & final years
- 1st: Loughborough University with Charity Point
- Joint 2nd: Chichester University with Shareable Network Data and
- University of the West of London with Biteless
The winning team from Loughborough tackled the lack of digital connection between charities and the public. Their solution is an app (Charity Point) that makes donations simpler, clearer and quicker by enabling financial and physical item donations for charities in their local area.
Individual prizes were awarded to:
- Callum Jones University of the West of England
- Nino Matozan Queen Mary University of London
- Mark Chinyamunyamu Lancaster University
- Dan O’Neill Lancaster University
- John Hoyos University of the West of England
- Lara Pearson Loughborough University
- Nowman Islam University of the West of London
Find out more about the Spring Challenge and Spring Event 2021.
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