Summertime usually means barbeques and vacation time. But for some students in the UK, it’s been a summer of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) related youth competitions and Symantec employees have been busy participating as mentors and judges to these young people. The TeenTech Awards and Go4SET competitions challenge students to develop innovative, technological solutions to modern-day problems and present their ideas to a panel of judges. Inspiring the future leaders in STEM is a philanthropic priority for Symantec and supporting youth through mentorship and other volunteering opportunities opens up their future to all the potential of STEM careers.
Today we hear from Siân John, EMEA Chief Strategist at Symantec, and Peter Grimmond, EMEA VP Technology Sales and Services for Veritas, regarding their experiences mentoring students in STEM.
Symantec Judges the Safety and Security Category at the TeenTech Awards by Siân John, EMEA Chief Strategist
Imagine cyclists wearing jackets lit up by LEDs, solar powered emergency streetlights, and sunglasses that monitor epilepsy – sounds like a futuristic movie. The reality is that each one of those seemingly farfetched ideas are actually developed concepts that were recently awarded as clever technological innovations. What’s more impressive is that these ideas came from students aged 11 to 16 years old. The TeenTech Awards asks UK students to not only dream up, but also develop concepts that “could make life easier, simpler, or better.” Almost four hundred teams, of up to three pupils each, submitted their ideas within ten categories. On June 22nd ten winners, one in each category, were announced at the Royal Society in London.
Representing Symantec, I was able to participate as a judge for the Safety and Security category. The students at the TeenTech Awards were inspiring. The room was full of inventive and innovative ideas from many children. The winners of the Safety and Security category were to Rosie, Isabel and Ella from Sandbach High School for creating solar powered emergency street lighting. It was evident these students spent a lot of time researching how their product would work, materials, use cases and how solar power switches operate most efficiently.
Congratulations to Rosie, Isabel, and Ella from Sandbach High School– winners of the Safety and Security category of the TeenTech Awards 2015, judged by Symantec.
Presenting to the Duke of York at the Royal Society in London.
The finalists of the Safety and Security category were all extremely impressive. The runners up developed a cardio rhythm enabled bracelet to be used as an access card. “During the last few days I’ve been reviewing the Oxford and Royal Holloway Centres for Doctoral Training in CyberSecurity. One of the Doctoral trainees at Oxford came up with a very similar idea – this shows just how advanced these ideas are from the 14 and 15 year olds in this competition,” John mentioned.
Top, the highly commended second place team from Loughborough Grammar School and their idea, AssuRFID. Bottom,, the third place team from Birkdale School and their Citizen Alert
The Little Einsteins WIN at Go4SET! By Peter Grimmond, EMEA VP Technology Sales and Services for Veritas
The culmination of a ten-week STEM project came to a close on July 3rd when students from across the UK came to the University of Westminster in London to present their projects to a panel of judges. The Engineering Development Trust (EDT), a non-profit that delivers over 30,000 STEM activities for UK youth each year, organizes this national STEM competition for students aged 14 – 15 years old to encourage school children to pursue a path in STEM. The student teams partner with mentors from universities and STEM related employers to develop and present a project that applies to a real world setting.
I had the opportunity with Helen Gallick, Veritas Northern EMEA Enablement Lead, to mentor a group of six girls from the Reading Girls High School to guide them with the project. “We chose Reading Girls High School because we want to encourage more women to enter into the tech space,” Helen Gallick said. The competition, sponsored by Mastercard, challenged the pupils to come up with an idea that would look at the future of money and how people would be paying in the future.
The Little Einsteins, as the girls decided to call their team, went straight for it! For ten weeks Helen and I spent a couple of hours each Friday to help steer them. We first looked at the history of money to start brainstorming about the idea. We helped them get structured and guided them on their individual roles. It was a great opportunity for the girls to learn about teamwork and leadership. As mentors, we were involved with the development of the idea and worked with them to produce a model and the five-minute presentation. The girls even had the opportunity to visit Symantec and presented their pitch to the Senior VP for EMEA Sales, Matthew Ellard.
The Little Einsteins visit the Symantec UK office Green Park Reading.
On presentation day, the Little Einsteins pitched to a panel of judges, business people, teachers, guests and mentors, answering questions and showcasing their design. The pupils did an outstanding job and won the category of “The Pupils’ Vote” for the whole competition, securing first place, the winners! An exciting addition is that as a result of the high standard of their entry and idea, the Little Einsteins have been invited back to MasterCard in September to pitch their idea in a Dragon’s Den fashion, and they were the ONLY team to be invited from the whole competition! Their idea, the E-Wallet, solved the problem of carrying around a wallet by replacing it with a wearable token (which can be a bracelet, cufflink, key-fob or necklace). The user touches their token on the in-store point-of-sale terminal which then further authenticates the individual through a retina scan before giving the person a choice of credit cards and also suggesting loyalty cards to use for the purchase. I was refreshingly surprised by their innovation and drive!
The Little Einsteins present their E-Wallet project to a panel of judges at the Go4SET competition hosted at the University of Wesminister in London. They won first place for the ‘Pupil’s Vote’ award!
Helen and I continue to mentor the girls in preparation of their upcoming pitch in September. During this next phase they will develop their idea further and improve the wider business plan, explore the whole business process, research the target market, how to price their product, and understand the competition. “It was so inspiring watching these girls grow and it’s satisfying to know that projects like this help safeguard their future. They are getting access to employers, demonstrating self-discipline, and I was really impressed by the complete and utter motivation the girls had to win. I’m passionate about helping young people and this was a brilliant experience for these girls, to see how something starts, gets created and presented, especially with the strong technology focus,” said Helen.
“I think Symantec, through its corporate responsibility efforts, provides a vehicle to give back to our communities, and to do it well. If you have the passion, you don’t have to seek the opportunities; they are there. I use to run my own company prior to joining Symantec, and I always wanted to mentor or to participate in other volunteering initiatives, but I never had the vehicle. With Symantec, it’s there. It’s really very rewarding and we’re lucky because we have a means to accessing all these opportunities through Symantec’s corporate responsibility,” Helen said.
To learn more about Symantec’s Corporate Responsibility, visit us here.