How can education, the economy and employers work together to deliver computing skills and opportunities for our post-Covid future?

The work-place is changing fast - and the needs of employers and the economy are evolving rapidly. Employers predict a shortage of digital skills in the future – but also new opportunities for a skilled workforce.

How can education, the economy and employers work together to deliver computing skills for our post-Covid future? And how can we ensure that the future opportunities in tech will be available to all?

We’ll be looking at these, and other questions, in our Digital Skills Forum bringing together expert speakers and thought-leaders from industry and education for a lively discussion.

4.30pm to 5.15pm

Chair: Prof Simon Peyton Jones

Prof Simon Peyton Jones is Chair of the National Centre for Computing Education, and Chair and co-founder of Computing at School (CAS). He is a computer science researcher at Microsoft Research and has been deeply involved in computing education since 2007.

Speakers:

Abigail Gilbert, Principal Researcher at the Institute for the Future of Work

Abby researches the experience and implications of data driven technologies in the workplace. She recently co-authored ‘The Amazonian Era: How Algorithmic Systems are Eroding Good Work’ and has previously explored the risks to equality of machine learning systems in human resource functions with IFOW. She is interested in the way technology can impact the distribution of power and resources within society.

Abby will present a call to tech workers and educators about the need to focus on creating products and systems which build a fairer future of better work and ensure data driven systems do not repeat the inequalities of the past by projecting them into the future.

Chris Hillidge, Director of STEM, The Challenge Academy Trust

Chris is responsible for the STEM Strategy across The Challenge Academy Trust and leads the NCCE Computing Hub for Merseyside & Warrington. He is a DfE Specialist Leader of Education focused on STEM and Science and co-designed a STEM Education/ Industry collaboration with United Utilities. He is Director of the UK's only Fablab in a school setting - a design and manufacturing facility developed with Massachusets Institute of Technology which provides a unique combination of education, enterprise, creativity and manufacturing.

Mavis Machirori, Senior Researcher at the Ada Lovelace Institute

The Ada Lovelace Institute works to ensure that data and AI work for people and society and believes that a world where data and AI work for people and society, is a world in which their opportunities, benefits and privileges are justly and equitably distributed and experienced. Through research, policy and practice, the institute aims to ensure that the transformative power of data and AI is used and harnessed in ways that maximise social wellbeing and put technology at the service of humanity. Mavis Machirori focusses on projects at the intersection of data-driven systems and digital technologies and their wider health and social impacts.

About the NCCE

The National Centre for Computing Education, funded by the Department for Education delivers teacher training and resources for computer science to enable every child in England to have a world-leading computing education.

The NCCE was launched in 2018 and is a consortium of STEM Learning, Raspberry Pi Foundation and BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT.

Improving the quality of teaching computing in schools:

• 29,500+ teachers engaged across more than 14,000 schools in England

• 4,300+ teachers have received training through the Computer Science Accelerator

• 394,000+ lessons downloaded from the Teach Computing Curriculum since launch

NCCE Digital Skills Forum - The Future of Work