Bring IT On's 'The Top 12 Tech jobs – explained' event at Dreamspace, W5

  • Sync NI attended Bring IT On's latest event today, 27th January, at the new Dreamspace at W5.

    The event included attendees of teachers and educators with the goal of equipping them with the information and tools that they need to encourage their students into the IT sector. 

    Beginning with a welcome from Bring IT On's Lisa McCaul, she explained how the day would intend to open up the minds of the educators and answer any of their questions. 

    Claire Nixon, director at Realtime Recruitment, took to the floor as she outlined some of the entryways to tech from a recruiter's point of view. Her stand-out point was how the IT stereotype of "tech is for men" needs to be broken as many young girls dismiss a future in IT because of the idea of it "not being for them".

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    Claire then sat down to question some industry experts to get some advice from them. David Jamison, Site lead at Insider, Inc., spoke about how his unconventional path to tech began at school when his enjoyment of playing Nintendo games sparked his passion for IT. David expanded on how despite not being successful academically at school, he went on to work off his "do to learn" mindset and become a talented and successful programmer from his own initiative. 

    David was joined by Bazaarvoice's lead product designer, Stephen Currie. Stephen reminisced over his childhood brought up by two teachers, so his path was well set out for him and was led up the more traditional route. However, Stephen's talent was embedded in design, so his tech career has reflected that and got him to where he is now. 

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    Following this, the educators got hands-on with Minecraft, understanding how the game has been adapted for educational purposes to teach coding in a way that is fun and creative for children and how game-based learning engages young people.

    The event then led to a word from Cyberfirst, a programme that has been developed to encourage and support students interested in pursuing a career in cyber security. 

    In closing, Professor of Computing at Belfast Met, Eamonn Brankin, spoke about how the tech sector in Northern Ireland is overflowing with job opportunities, stating that "if you have the skills, a company will hire you, it is not an overly competitive recruitment process", with 23% of all advertised jobs in NI being in IT. 

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