Many are aware that there is a digital skills gap in Scotland, which if not addressed has the potential to negatively impact the country’s economy. With post-Brexit talent restrictions predicted there has never been a greater need for Scotland to nurture its own talent pool.

CEO and co-founder of SmartSTEMs, Stuart Macdonald, believes that the skills divide, as well as being a gender problem, is primarily one of inclusivity, especially with children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Macdonald feels that, in order to break down barriers and improve Scotland’s talent flow, everyone has to be involved – “it takes a village to raise a child”, he explained.

Through expanding networks and providing children with greater connectedness, only then will they have equal access to opportunities.

The purpose of SmartSTEMs is to increase the efficacy of STEM subjects and combine efforts to ensure it has the maximum effect. It is Macdonald’s belief that industry and education need to cooperate more effectively to ensure that young people are benefiting in the long-term.

The organisation works across Scotland, running between ten and 20 events each year. Due to its success, it has already run events in London and is looking to run 10 events in England next year.

Expanding Careers Options and Networks

By holding events on campus, SmartSTEMs strives to open kids up to a world of opportunity by inviting inspiring individuals to speak to them and give them a first-hand account of their journey.

“First-person testimony is the most compelling thing,” Macdonald explains. “Sometimes a teacher can say something to a child until they are blue in the face and have no impact, but if an industry person says it, it’s almost permissible.

“These talks are important because it helps them to discover other interesting career options beyond traditional professions such as being a doctor, lawyer or dentist. Children who are well off generally have more and often better connections via their parents, schools and teachers.”

Macdonald adds: “Some schools and teachers will be more engaged than others. What we want to do is even the playing field and stop that being a lottery for kids. We want to ensure equity of opportunity for young people. To make things fairer we need to have a more connected society.

“As a rule, we try and focus on schools primarily within deprived areas. Within that school we would focus on kids primarily for whom no one in their family had been to college or university. That would be our starting point.”

As well as discussions and presentations, children have the chance to participate in hands-on workshops that cover the four pillars of STEM; Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Competitions are also held on the day to help incentivise and engage the pupils with the subject.

“We try to make tech relevant to them and show them they can do so many things with tech,” says Macdonald. We want them to understand that core STEM skills are highly transferable and widen their options in terms of a career.”

Redesigning the Engagement Model

With industry, education or individuals working in isolated pockets – or without a proper format – the task of encouraging kids into STEM becomes a monumental task and, ultimately, lacks the consistency required to have a real impact, Macdonald says.

“There are lots of good activities going on but sometimes people are playing to a small room. For example, there would be cases where someone would take a full day off from their job to come work with young people and then there would be few kids in attendance. It would take a bit of friction to get things going.

“Again, another issue is that both teachers and industry want to be met where they are. For example, teachers  often engage with the GLOW network, while industry prefers to use press releases and have a presence on Linkedin. So we try to bring these two together to a middle point – on neutral ground at a College or University Campus.

“Our goal is to redesign that engagement model for that part of the talent pipeline. We want to facilitate many new and strong connections between schools and industry.”

Macdonald explains that initially making contact with schools and getting them on-board wasn’t easy. On average it took seven phone calls to get a school for the first time.

Following a string of successes, accolades and an improved marketing strategy, it is becoming an easier task. Typically, Macdonald notes, new events are fully booked after two days.

Creating and Exporting Successful Formats

While schools are receiving more support than previously, the task of implementing STEM clubs successfully is a challenging task. Macdonald says it is unfair to place this responsibility solely upon teachers.

SmartSTEMs’ solution is to use the support of industry. Macdonald says: “What we look for is other groups like us who have a scalable and replicable model such as CodeClub and Coder Dojo, EDT and Primary Engineer.

“We tell teachers not to go it alone, and instead encourage them to leverage these established models, to use their content and our collective network of volunteers.

“We’re essentially the broker. We also use our partners to help. So, if a school wants to run a coding club we will connect them with STEM university students and people from the industry.

“We provide the format so they can recreate it themselves and become self-sufficient. We have a playbook of models and formats. Our goal is to help establish it then let them get on with it.

“Ideally, we’d like to have a TEDx format, where people are enabled and empowered to run events locally within a framework format.

“And, in the future, we’d like to have multiple events running annually in every College and University in Scotland. We want to do more outreach and get greater engagement around science and maths, the latter of which is typically the weakest of the four STEM pillars.”