Key players from London’s tech sector have come together to launch a new fund, the Tech City Fellowship fund, to enable young non-graduates from East London access high quality vocational digital skills training. Launching in January 2015, the fund is the result of collaboration between coding boot-camp Makers Academy, platform provider ProFinda, fin-tech company StudentFunder and the Connecting Tech City initiative from think tank the Centre for London. The fund hopes to attract 100 young non graduates aged 18 to 25 in its first year by raising over £1 million from venture capitalists, tech firms and private donors which can then be loaned to applicants. The Fellowship fund was launched at a speed mentoring session, hosted by Oli Barrett, with 30 of London’s top tech CEOs on Tuesday 25th November 2014 at The Ace Hotel in Shoreditch.
The new Fellowship represents a solution to the funding conundrum that less affluent prospective students face and it addresses the major skills crisis in the digital sector. A report from O2 warns that failure to address the digital skills shortage could leave 21,000 digital jobs unfulfilled by 2017. The ‘Scale Up’ report launched in November 2014 by Sherry Coutu estimates that there were 990,000 unfulfilled or “open” positions in fast growing tech companies in the UK this year alone. However, the success of the Tech City Fellowship will depend on the ability of the organisers to reach young, local black and minority ethnic (BME) individuals. The borough of Tower Hamlets BME population has a younger age profile than that of the White population. Of all residents aged under 20 in the borough – 77 per cent are from BME groups (55 per cent from Bangladeshi groups and 22 per cent from other BME groups).
Census 2011: East London boroughs show biggest rise in UK population
Census 2011 date released by the Office of National Statistics has shown that Tower Hamlets and Newham have seen the largest population increase by percentage of all areas – whether borough, county, district or local authority – in England and Wales in ten years. Tower Hamlets ranked first with an increase of 24.6 per cent since 2001 with an estimated population of 254,100 residents as of 22 March 2011. Newham had the second highest rate of population growth with 23.5 per cent, with Hackney in fourth place with an increase in population of 18.9 per cent in ten years.
The Tech City Fellowship
The Tech City Fellowship consists of three elements:
1. A fund providing education loans to non-graduate 18 to 25 year olds to pay for a place on selected digital training courses. The Tech City Fellowship will provide access to loans of up to £11,600 per student to cover £8,000 of fees and £1,200 per month living costs for the duration of their course. The Fellowship will be administered by fin-tech company StudentFunder.
2. Allocated places on Markers Academy’s world class software development bootcamp. Makers Academy is the founding delivery partner for the scheme and trains junior developers in the latest coding languages. It typically places new recruits in jobs within 4-6 weeks of their graduating at salaries averaging £30,000 per annum. A course such as that offered by Makers Academy typically costs less than one-fifth of a university degree and takes only 3 months instead of 3 years to complete.
3. Guaranteed junior developer jobs or paid internships with Future 50 Company Lyst and collaborative platform ProFinda already committed.
Speaking about the initiative, Jess Tyrell, Director of Centre for London’s Connecting Tech City programme said, “this exciting new initiative will enable talented young Londoners who do not otherwise have the funds to develop the very latest programming skills and access high quality jobs.”
I Love Tech City Speed Mentoring Event
As part of the Connecting Tech City project, Centre for London brought together 100+ young Londoners with 30 of London’s top tech CEOs on Tuesday 25th November 2014 to discuss ideas, share career insights and advise young people on how to break into the tech industry. The aim is to connect more young Londoners to opportunities to develop digital skills in response to the growing tech skills shortage in London. CEOs involved included: Michael Acton Smith, Chief Creative Officer, Mind Candy; Mark Adams, Director, The Audience; Ronan Dunne, CEO, Telefonica; Zoe Cunningham, Chief Executive, Softwire; Kathryn Parsons, Co-Founder, Decoded; Ed Wray, Co-Founder, Betfair; Renate Nyborg, Founder & CEO of Pleo, a mobile consulting and design studio in East London and many others.
To find out more about Connecting Tech City or to apply for the Tech City Fellowship visit: http://centreforlondon.org/connecting-tech-city/