FUNDING totalling £150,000 will be available to support extracurricular activities focusing on developing computing science and digital skills in 2016/17.
Eligible groups will be able to bid for grants from £1500 to £25000 per project from the Digital Xtra Fund, which is intended to support organisations which give young people opportunities to learn computer science related skills and contribute to widening the provision of extracurricular computing science related activities across Scotland.
The Fund, developed and funded by the Digital Scotland Business Excellence Partnership, launched in May 2016 and is part of a wider programme of activity dedicated to developing digital skills and making extracurricular computing science activities available to all young people aged 16 and under, whatever their background and wherever they live in Scotland.
A total of £250,000 was awarded to 12 projects in August 2016, supporting a diverse range of activities including the use of wildlife cameras to help school pupils learn to code using Raspberry Pi computers, coding taught through local libraries, and a forensic investigation project.
Phil Worms, Computing and Schools Project lead at tech industry body ScotlandIS, says:
“At a time when the Scottish digital technologies sector is forecast to grow and there is increasing demand across the economy for staff with high level digital technology skills, it is clear that the talent pipeline in Scotland needs to expand to meet this demand.
“The core objective of the Digital Xtra Fund is to increase the number of young people learning computer science related digital skills in an extracurricular setting. Therefore, projects should show clearly how participants will be involved in digital making and what computer science related skills they will learn.”
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