Heroes of Tomorrow - Interview with Sarah Chew, TechFest

Can you tell us about the Heroes of Tomorrow event and why it was created?

So ‘heroes of tomorrow’ is a partnership event between tech fest and Equinor and it's designed to give young people, our ‘heroes of tomorrow,’ a chance to meet industry professionals, to try opportunities, to workshops that use some of the skills, the sort of transferable skills, that they have but maybe have never thought about what they would like to apply those too into the future so it's a practical opportunity for kids to get hands-on. But also to just focus their minds about all the things that they can do and have the opportunity to ask questions, a day out at school to think about what they do in the classroom and how important it is and sometimes when young people ask the question ‘when am I ever going to use this?’ they've come along today and they're left in no doubt everything that they're learning in school is going to set them up for the future. But the opportunity to think ‘what do I want to do?’ and all the choices they have.

How do you find the pupils respond to STEM subjects when presented in this way?

The overwhelming response I've got today and yesterday when we welcomed more than 400 students and their teachers- it's just this energy, they have brought this whole event alive. When we sit as of tomorrow planning for the next event we have their vision in mind because they've given it to us- they've told us what they've asked for. They're wanting hands-on opportunities for them to show off what they can do. They're so creative and they're so passionate, they’re such natural problem solvers and they've brought all of this energy, but they've also inspired us to think about what we can do to help produce more events like this for them. But they've made their vision and their energy and their enthusiasm is coming in bucketloads from them and also their teachers who've been fantastically supportive of this event and bringing the students, but also they will carry that on following along from today. The teachers have been given resources to take back to school that would help our young people think more and more and more about what they've learned today but also the opportunities for them in the future.

Do you have any plants for more events or initiatives like this in the future?

Absolutely so ‘Heroes of Tomorrow,’ we actually did our first event on a much, much smaller scale in 2015. We sat with Equinor and they said “what is it you want to do?” and we wanted to keep a clear focus over each year that we've done this event keeping our ‘Heroes of Tomorrow’ in mind, our young people, but also as we moved to planning for next year there'll be more opportunities for our young people to showcase what they can do, there'll be more opportunities for industry to talk to young people at the different platforms that we've provided (either through the careers panel, the careers networking or some of the hands-on workshops that the kids have done today) so when we put the plans together for next year it'll hopefully be even bigger. Each year we've grown and grown and we've always, thanks to the support from Equinor, been able to meet the needs of all schools so anyone who wanted to come to ‘Heroes of Tomorrow’ has been able to come and that's why the event is more than doubled from one year to the next. But having this fantastic space here at Robert Gordon University gives us huge potential for growth and the fact that there's so many organisations, like the Society for petroleum engineers, ab safe, and the Robert going to university for bringing their workshop, the team from eccrine or for assisting us in delivering these, we've also had a great game installation manager with our partners and at-risk tech. We've had the opportunity to put more and more workshops on and grow and grow and grow and grow and so who knows what tomorrow's event will hold but hopefully we'll be able to continue to welcome more and more students and to keep giving them the event that they deserve and match their enthusiasm and passion in the in the events that we deliver.