Sunderland Software City

Sunderland Software City is making up for the disappointment of the last minute cancellation of the region’s biggest engineering careers show by making its stand at the event available virtually.

7000 North East youngsters were due to experience the exciting engineering careers available in the region at the Boom conference this week at the Metro Radio Arena, before the event was called off at short notice.

Software City - which supports the growth of the software industry in the North East - had planned to use the event to showcase some of the most interesting software being developed in the region, including gory software teaching medical students how to perform operations and software showing youngsters what their faces will look like in the future if they live unhealthily.

Young people can now view the software in a series of short films - available on You Tube and Vimeo - which also feature the people behind the software at local companies Animmersion, Ideonic  and LamasaTech explaining why the software sector is such a great place to work. 

Bernie Callaghan, Sunderland Software City’s Chief Executive Officer said:  “We’re working to build an unmatched pool of software talent in the North East and a big part of that is showing local young people what an interesting and rewarding place the sector is to work.

“We know some of them might think that a career in software is a bit dull or is only for geeks, but that really isn’t true at all. We thought Boom was a great opportunity to dispel some of those myths, and were as disappointed as anyone when we heard the conference wasn’t going ahead.

“We thought we would try and let young people experience our stand another way, so we took out a camcorder and went to work. We filmed it in a huge rush so the film is definitely more Blair Witch Project than Avatar but if it inspires people we’re happy to arrange for companies like the ones in the film to come into schools and show students in person the benefits of a career in software.”

The films come complete with lesson plans developed by the Open University, which give students the chance to invent their own planets and create creatures to inhabit them and are designed to meet the needs of the Key Stage 3 ICT and Science Curricula

Sunderland Software City also organises fun and interactive workshops for schools aimed at getting students thinking about ICT as a possible career and getting then to think about how much of an impact software has on their lives.

The videos can be found on Vimeo and YouTube using the user name “sunsoftcity”.