Young Enterprise NI

VCSE organisation: Young Enterprise NI

Social Challenge:

Young Enterprise identified a digital skills gap in the Northern Ireland economy, with many young people lacking the skills that employers in the IT industry demand. Young people who do not study STEM subjects in their education rule out careers in this growth sector creating a digital divide. With the current career advice service, young people find it hard to comprehend how they can apply technology to solve business and social challenges.

Young Enterprise invested in a Learning Management System (LMS) providing enterprise education to schools in both an online environment and with blended learning in the longer term. As part of this work, the team are keen to develop a Virtual Reality module to help students and teachers understand how VR works, how this can be applied in a work setting and how it is experienced as a user.

Techie: Zoo Creative

Tech Solution: Watch the demonstration video of the prototype digital solution;

Following participation in the programme, YENI pitched for and received a Seed Fund award of £12,000 to enable them to further develop, test and launch their prototype project. You can watch their pitch and showcase event here 

The Seed Fund award will be used to:

• develop a technology infrastructure that will provide a YENI hosted platform to allow direct access from school sites.
• create a VR environment development – this will build on the prototype concept and create additional scenarios for use by young people and identify how these can be incorporated into other employability programmes that the charity delivers.
• Invest in VR Google Cardboard headsets to allow young people to access the VR technology during the sessions, which they will retain to encourage them to explore other VR technologies further themselves.
• Branding & promotion of the platform to include a demo video and marketing and printed promotional materials.