> ... people that would have loved to get their hands dirty with micro-controllers, soldering, programming and all the other stuff that could help them solve real world problems, but they were just never given the chance
Anecdotally, this was _almost_ me. I ended up going to university to study CS much later in my life than most people, and only because of a fortunate meeting with someone who was from that kind of background and 'guessed' I would be into it, and if I didn't, who knows what crappy dead-end job I would've ended up in.
How lucky I am to have 'made it' into a career I enjoy, and how many other people are out there who would love to have this opportunity, but instead are working in dull, menial jobs, just like I was before uni, is something I think about often.
I'm not sure how we get more people involved. There are 'STEM ambassador' (https://www.stem.org.uk/stem-ambassadors) roles in the UK. I'm not sure of their efficacy.
There's a wonderful initiative in Suffolk, East of England, run by somebody I knew many years ago.
Basically it's an educational club and community interest charity run/founded by a Matthew Applegate to teach kids and young people across Suffolk (I think there were also talks of expanding it to Norfolk.) all sorts of tech things like robotics, programming, game design electronics, and probably more now.
I don't know what it is about his style of teaching but he completely changed my view of IT and the IT industry. Before then, my main tech knowledge was from the at the time terrible exposure you got in rural schools back in the 2000s and taking electronics apart to try and see how they worked. I thought programming was way beyond me as I didn't do well at all in school and had major self esteem issues as a kid. Matt is one of the key reasons I gained a serious interest in technology and has helped probably thousands more like me. He showed me all it takes to learn anything is time, effort, and a healthy dose of curiousity.
Maybe other educators could reach out to him and ask how he does things differently? I'd love to see things like this crop up nationwide, I feel it'd seriously change the knowledge base of tech issues for future generations.
Anecdotally, this was _almost_ me. I ended up going to university to study CS much later in my life than most people, and only because of a fortunate meeting with someone who was from that kind of background and 'guessed' I would be into it, and if I didn't, who knows what crappy dead-end job I would've ended up in.
How lucky I am to have 'made it' into a career I enjoy, and how many other people are out there who would love to have this opportunity, but instead are working in dull, menial jobs, just like I was before uni, is something I think about often.
I'm not sure how we get more people involved. There are 'STEM ambassador' (https://www.stem.org.uk/stem-ambassadors) roles in the UK. I'm not sure of their efficacy.