TCS IT Futures Helps Over 570,000 UK School Students Develop Digital Skills
Working with the Government, Schools and Third Parties, Tata Consultancy Services’ Program is Inspiring Young People across the UK to Take Up STEM Careers
LONDON, November 14, 2019: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS) a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organisation, announced that its award-winning digital skills programme, IT Futures, has crossed a significant milestone, successfully engaging more than 570,000 students, across the UK, and registering a sharp increase in participation by young girls.
TCS’ IT Futures Programme aims to nurture the IT talent of tomorrow, and focuses on young people in schools, colleges and universities, as well as their influencers – teachers, parents, and peers. The program achieved the feat of engaging over half a million students in digital skills with the help of 200 volunteers from TCS, third parties and industry leaders, including Airbus and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
A new pilot initiative, TCS Girls in AI engaged over 800 girl students in Scotland through a series of workshops that explore machine learning and coding but also look at how tech can be used to solve societal problems. Following the successful pilot, TCS will host over 270 young girls at three additional workshops in Scotland this year, and expand the program nationwide in 2020.
These initiatives by TCS aim to address the digital skills gap in the UK that was highlighted in Delivering Skills for the New Economy, a report by TCS and the Confederation of British Industry. According to the report, the gap is costing the UK economy £63 billion a year, as companies struggle to find qualified people. The study also found that two thirds of digital jobs in the country remain vacant.
This week, TCS is partnering with the Lloyds Banking Group to host more than 950 students, aged 12-18, at a five-day Digital Explorers workshop in Manchester to learn digital and employability skills from experts in the field and network with TCS employees. This is the latest event in the series, after Liverpool, Bristol, London, Peterborough, Birmingham and Edinburgh, which saw participation by 5,000 students. A further 3,000 young people will have attended the series by the end of 2019. The proportion of girls taking part in Digital Explorers has also increased from 28% in 2018 to 41% in 2019.
“As a father of two young girls, I’ve seen first-hand the effect technology can have on young people and realised the need to inspire them from a young age,” said Yogesh Chauhan, Director, Corporate Sustainability, TCS. “At TCS, we’re thrilled to see the growth of our STEM initiatives, as we continue to encourage young people to understand how the latest technology can be used to create their own solutions.”
In addition to the STEM initiatives for students, TCS works with customers to provide digital skills opportunities to people already in the workforce. TCS employees recently volunteered at an Engineering Open Day at Lloyds Banking Group’s Flagship Manchester Branch to inform and inspire non-technical staff to consider career paths in technology and software engineering at the bank.
Sara Milne, Engineering Lead, Capability & Culture, Group Transformation, Lloyds Banking Group, said, “We recently held an Engineering Open Day at our Manchester Flagship Branch, designed to inform non-engineering colleagues about career paths in technology and give them a taste of what it’s like to work in software engineering. It was great to have colleagues from TCS join us on the day and speak to the attendees, helping answer their questions and giving a view on software engineering roles. Having TCS at events like this provides a valuable third-party perspective.”
Notes to Editors:
TCS’ ongoing STEM engagement programmes have been recognised by Better Society Award for National Commitment to Skills & Training, a network that recognizes corporates that are actively helping to create a more equal, ethical and sustainable world. IT Futures has also won two Lotus Awards in the Sustainability and Culture categories, an award scheme that recognizes entrants on company culture and sustainability regardless of sector, size, budget or country.
If you would like to find out more about TCS’ initiatives and how TCS is inspiring young people to get involved in STEM, please do get in touch and follow TCS on Twitter at @TCS_UKI.
About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS)
Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that has been partnering with many of the world’s largest businesses in their transformation journeys for the last fifty years. TCS offers a consulting-led, cognitive powered, integrated portfolio of business, technology and engineering services and solutions. This is delivered through its unique Location Independent Agile delivery model, recognized as a benchmark of excellence in software development.
A part of the Tata group, India's largest multinational business group, TCS has over 450,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants in 46 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $20.9 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019, and is listed on the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) and the NSE (National Stock Exchange) in India. TCS' proactive stance on climate change and award-winning work with communities across the world have earned it a place in leading sustainability indices such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), MSCI Global Sustainability Index and the FTSE4Good Emerging Index. For more information, visit us at www.tcs.com.
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