Connecting young people to digital jobs

It’s London Technology Week and we’re proud to announce our support for a new youth employability initiative – Connecting Tech City. Thanks to the collaborative success of the Centre for London’s crowd-funding platform, businesses, education partners and individuals have rallied to raise £50k towards a new digital platform. The website aims to bring together the array of digital skills training programmes available across the platform, creating a digital skills hub which will support and signpost young people into learning opportunities and jobs in London’s Tech City.

Telefonica UK is already committed to tackling youth unemployment through GoThinkBig, our work experience and skills platform, which has provided over 12,000 work experience opportunities, helping young people to gain the necessary experience to get a foot on the career ladder. We’re excited to back Connecting Tech City and hope to be able to signpost and share opportunities between the websites, to support more young people across London and the rest of the UK to break the cycle of youth unemployment and contribute to a growing digital economy. [library asset=12440]

Our Think Big Hub is also based in Hoxton Square, at the heart of Tech City, and is now the nerve centre for all our digital skills training and support for young people. The fully connected digital space was launched in March 2014 and offers flexible working space for young people, alongside training in enterprise, digital and work skills. We’re developing an exciting ‘Digital Summer’ programme, powered by Think Big, which will offer a wide range of digital skills training opportunities for young people, alongside funding and support to turn their ideas into action. Through Think Big, we’ll join up with many other education, training and skills providers involved in the Connecting Tech City initiative to offer high quality digital learning opportunities to thousands of young people in London and across the UK.

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson welcomed the new initiative to connect more young people to digital jobs, saying: “London is already the digital capital of Europe. But that’s just the beginning. We want London to be the digital capital of the world. To do that we need to ensure that our young people have the skills that our digital firms need and that youngsters have access to all the opportunities our amazing digital economy has to offer.”

Helping young people to respond to the opportunities created by the growing digital economy in the UK and globally remains a key priority. Our CEO, Ronan Dunne, has already outlined the growing skills gap in the Tech Sector, which is matched by growing rates of unemployment amongst the most digitally savvy generation yet. Through initiatives like GoThinkBig and Connecting Tech City, we believe we can do more to capitalise on young digital talent, helping a generation of digital natives to join the job market and deliver market-leading innovation and economic growth.

Learn more about Connecting Tech City here. Follow Telefonica UK’s own youth employment accelerator @GoThinkBig and keep in touch with London Technology Week at #LDNTechWeek