Aspiration Digital was a huge success and it was so fantastic to see so many young people in the room inspired about their futures. Read the coverage from the event below...

Over 250 students and teachers attend a one-day digital conference in Maidstone to highlight the career opportunities in the industry

Over 250 students and teachers from across Kent have attended a one-day digital conference in Maidstone hosted by Reflect Digital.

Aspiration Digital was held at Maidstone Grammar School for Girls (MGGS) on Wednesday (20th November), for the second year in a row, in a bid to inspire and educate young people about career opportunities in the digital industry.

Earlier this year, Reflect Digital carried out a survey which found that 63% of students across the UK believe more needs to be done at schools, colleges and universities to educate them about the number of careers in the digital world.

The study also revealed that 90% would benefit from learning about digital marketing/coding in schools, colleges and universities.

According to the Government, the tech sector in the UK is growing at 50% faster than the rest of the UK economy.

In light of this, Reflect Digital teamed up with Maidstone Grammar School for Girls again, to highlight just how many jobs there are in the digital world including; marketing, design, development, search engine optimisation (SEO) and account management.

A number of guest speakers from other Kent-based agencies including AM Marketing, Redsprout and Yoyo were in attendance as well as guest speakers from the events main sponsor Dovetail Games and our partner agency LAB.

Picture: Becky Simms, CEO at Reflect Digital (centre) is joined by students

Becky Simms, CEO at Reflect Digital, said:

“Aspiration Digital was a huge success this year.

“We did everything we set out to do, we widened the student's imagination, gave them an opportunity to connect with industry professionals and we sparked action.

“Within hours of the event, I had students connecting with me on LinkedIn with messages of how inspiring the day had been and how they learnt about roles they did not know existed and now have an idea of the pathway they wish to take.

“It fills me with so much pride and joy to see such amazing professionals in our industry willing to give their time freely to inspire our next generation.”

Neil Walker, Head of Business, ICT, Computing and Economics at Maidstone Grammar School for Girls, said:

“I thought that Aspiration Digital was an amazing success and the positive impact that this day has on so many of our students will be felt for many months, helping to raise aspirations and focus goals.

“To provide them with a variety of different speakers who have different stories, different talents and have taken different routes really does inspire our young people and is really helpful to us as a reference in our subsequent teaching and in many conversations we have throughout the year - the impact of this day is felt over many months.

“To have such amazing role models for our students to aspire to is great. I have already had many students come up to me and tell me about the work experience they now have secured.

“As a school, we are very lucky to have a partnership with a local business like yourselves that sees the value in education and is prepared to work with us and give time and money to these types of projects, we really appreciate it and do not take it for granted.

“This is really the dream scenario of schools/business where we can have maximum impact by working together - I hope that all schools could have a situation like this!”