DigiLocal has announced that specialist technology marcoms consultancy Grand Bridges is supporting the charity in its work to give marginalised young people the opportunity to discover and grow their digital talents.
DigiLocal is a Bristol charity charged with supporting marginalised young people in developing their problem solving skills and building resilience through weekly, free, community-hosted coding clubs with volunteer mentors from industry. This provides those young people with opportunities they otherwise would not have access to, and industry with a diverse range of future employees.
“We cannot thank you enough for the knowledge and experience that being part of Digilocal has given to Charlie …. [He] is doing really well with his Computer Science GCSE and iMedia and is planning to stay on at school next year to do A-Levels in Computer Science, Maths and Physics, with the hope of a future in Software Development. He has had a couple of interviews at school and attended a few Apprenticeship open evenings and they have been so impressed by the coding and Python he has learned through being part of DigiLocal and the experiences such as the NASA Code Jam that you have offered him.”
Gemma (Charlie’s mum)
Grand Bridges CEO, Simon Flatt states: “As a consultancy specialising in the electronics sector we understand the fundamental need to encourage people from all backgrounds to engage with and build a passion for technology. We are pleased to support the work that Digilocal does to ensure that nobody is prevented from having access to the tools and mentorship they need to achieve this.”
In addition to the weekly clubs, DigiLocal has distributed over 2,000 laptops to disadvantaged young people. These have been donated by members of the general public and businesses local to Bristol. DigiLocal then repurposes them by data cleansing and installing a new operating system and software. They are then gifted to disadvantaged young people by charities and social organisations working directly within key communities.
Grand Bridges works across the tech sector and is very aware of the skills challenges facing high-growth and established global firms alike. Supporting DigiLocal allows them to contribute to tackling that challenge by engaging children from eight years old with fun projects in Scratch and Python. This ensures that when young people are making career decisions, the tech options are there for them.
Charity CEO John Bradford commented “Our clubs run throughout the year with young people welcome to attend as long as they are enjoying themselves and making progress. This investment in young people and their communities is critical to DigiLocal’s success and we’re very excited that Grand Bridges is getting behind us and the future generations of tech innovators.”
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About Digilocal
DigiLocal® is an independent registered charity (Reg: 1185746) for the public benefit, to advance the education of young people in the UK from groups that are under-represented within the technology industry, in particular but not exclusively, by supporting free technology clubs. It supports communities to run free tech clubs for their young people. Its mission is to support a tech club for young people with every community in the UK that would like to provide one.
About Grand Bridges Marketing
Grand Bridges Marketing is a results-oriented technology marcoms consultancy dedicated to helping high-tech businesses build powerful global brands and develop effective new product introduction and go-to-market strategies. From start-ups to established players, Grand Bridges provides a truly unique outsourced marcom model, offloading the burden of campaign planning and execution to free up internal resources to concentrate on what they do best.