Tech She Can Founder: We need more SMEs to step up and help

Sheridan Ash MBE, and GTIA board member Tracy Pound talk about the importance of smaller IT firms helping young people, particularly girls, get a foothold in our industry through work experience, mentoring or apprenticeships

The UK currently has around 980,000 young people aged 16-24 classed as NEETs – not in education, employment or training - and one charitable organisation is issuing a plea to tech industry SMEs to help.

The UK government says it is committed to addressing this crisis in today's budget.

In this interview, Tech She Can founder Sheridan Ash MBE calls on the channel's network of SME businesses to offer work experience – even virtually – to young people to learn key skills.

Tech She Can was founded by Ash in 2018, and its primary aim is to make technology careers more inclusive and accessible for all young people, particularly girls and groups that are underrepresented in the workforce such as those from low socio-economic backgrounds and ethnic minorities.

The charity, which is one of many supported by the Global Technology Industry Association (GTIA), aims to bring tech careers to life through free and inclusive educational experiences for children aged from five years to post-18 years, that have been designed by teachers for teachers.

Young people: the channel's recruitment pipeline

According to Tech She Can, 65 per cent of children today will be doing jobs that don’t currently exist and will be relying on technology skills that they are not being taught, but the charity is aiming to tackle that head on.

Ash said: “It is about making sure everybody understands that they can choose a career in technology. We are all about overturning those misconceptions about what the technology industry is and can be for people.”

GTIA’s Pound (pictured) said: “I struggle when I see young girls in particular thinking that IT technology is a career they cannot take on. As part of the board of directors for GTIA, to be able to find Sheridan and Tech She Can was amazing. There is so much work going on to try and encourage girls - and boys - to take careers in tech. GTIA is absolutely behind any initiatives and organisations that are breaking those barriers down.”

One of the newer initiatives Tech She Can has offered more recently is virtual work experience weeks for students where they are taught things like problem solving, collaboration, teamwork, CV writing and many other vital business skills that are transferable to the workplace.

“50 per cent of state school students don’t get work experience, particularly those outside cities,” explained Ash. “Where are they actually going to go to get that in-person work experience? That is why we decided to pioneer a virtual work experience week, where we did five days training in one week. It was all about the employability skills. We had 2000 students take part in those sessions. We are going to be doing a lot more of that, but any support we can get to create more opportunities going forward would be welcome.”

But SMEs are vital to helping Tech She Can move this concept to the next level by helping to provide actual on-site experiences and support at a local level.

“At the moment Tech She Can is 100 per cent industry funded. Most of our supporters are big organisations and we take young people between 16-18 into the local offices of the companies that we work with to get that vital experience.

"While this is fantastic – we need more of an SME network which is where our work with the GTIA comes into its own. We want to work with SMEs as well as the larger corporations.”