Why ”˜adopt’ a MSc Data Lab Student?
Article written by Bethany Rodgers-Rintoul, Delivery Lead at the MBN Academy part of MBN Solutions. MBN are one of the UK’s leading Recruitment/Talent Solutions organisations with a focus on the Data space.
If you follow MBN or The Data Lab, you’ve probably heard a lot of noise recently about The Data Lab’s MSc. Placement Programme ”¦but what really is this Programme? Why do companies take part? And most importantly, how will it benefit my organisation?
What is this Programme?
Essentially, The Data Lab’s MSc. Placement Programmeis a 10-12-week paid internship where current MSc. Data students are paired with companies across several industries and locations in Scotland. This year, we are tasked with placing around 100 students who come from 11 Universities from Aberdeen to Glasgow and everywhere in-between. These students are all funded by the Data Lab and are roughly ¾ of the way through their post graduate studies. They have the full support of the Data Lab and their University and can utilise resources from both.
How it’s organised
MBN, the Data Lab’s official delivery partners for the Programme, train all funded students in Employability skills, work with organisations to promote understanding of the Programme, help shape a suitable Project and match the most appropriate students to. MBN have been delivering the Programme for 3 years.
5 reasons to get involved:
- Address The Data Skills Gap in Scotland
The potential Data opportunity in Scotland is huge and the skills needed to take advantage of this are in great demand, but unfortunately in short supply. This Programme aims to create a steady pipeline of talented data individuals who are perfectly equipped with the relevant skills needed to help them build their professional data capability. The Data Lab MSc Programme differs from most other academic courses as it is focused on building applicable domain and soft skills expertise in addition to theoretical understanding. By developing both technical skills and industry gained “non-technical” skills that are essential to becoming a successful data scientist, we hope that these students obtain the perfect balance of hard and soft skills to ensure success in industry.
- Inclusion and Diversity
Diversity in approach, background and thought is a key driver within most organisations. A student can bring a world of fresh, diverse, new ideas to your company. They can see things from a different point of view, can help to influence decisions from a different perspective and can add value with a wider technological lens. This, along with the added research and support that they have access to, both from their University and the Data Lab, could massively help the development of your company. Often, a fresh set of eyes is all that is needed to solve problems and add innovate insight to your company.
- Gain technology knowledge
Upskilling staff through professional development/ refresher courses is often a time consuming as well as an expensive exercise. University students have been exposed to the latest technologies and tend to be very tech savvy and up to date with the latest trends. As these students are completing an MSc, they often have the added advantage of maturity which can be used to benefit an organisation. When you add “exposure to the latest tools and technologies” to “grounded maturity” you have a powerful combination. This shared knowledge can help you stay ahead of the curve and beat the competition.
- A set of helping hands
We’ve all been in this situation before, 1 million things to do and hardly any time to compete any of them. In brief, these students can help reduce the workplace pressure and “get things done”. Even with minimal commercial expertise, an extra set of hands can make all the difference. Also, with so many things to do and so little time, projects which are not high-priority’ are often put out on the back burner and forgotten about. A student can help with these projects, which in turn lightens the workload for others and can produce very interesting results.
- A chance to give back
These students are at the start of their data careers, this internship will mark the commencement of their practical’ experience. This is a huge and sometimes daunting step for these students, so helping them to establish themselves in the working world of data is a huge deal! We are all where we are today because of people who have coached and mentored us. Now, is it time to repay the favour? When you create an opportunity for a student, you are helping to prepare the next wave of Scotland’s Data Talent.
If this sounds like something that could interest you – please get in touch by dropping me a line at:
I’d be happy to talk you through this amazing initiative!
New Hire for Data Lab MSc Project
Most people tend to wind down in the lead up to the festive period, but I’m not most people! In the weeks before Christmas, I accepted a brand-new role with MBN Solutions in Glasgow.
I am the Delivery Lead for MBN Academy, responsible for leading the delivery of critical projects like The Data Lab MSc. Placement Programme. I have over 3 years’ experience within recruitment, sourcing, talent acquisition and management within the Scottish business community. Moving into a delivery lead position is a challenging new position for me, but I have been able to utilise my previous experience to enrich and improve the processalready.
I’ve joined MBN Academy at a key stage in our development as we move towards a larger, more complex delivery model. My added expertise, knowledge and drive will enable us to deliver the very best quality of service to our community.
My role is to provide guidance to students throughout the MSc. Placement Programme in addition to supporting Host Companies as they join the initiative. I have already had the opportunity to assist with the delivery of Employability training sessions at participating Universities and advising potential Host Companies on the benefits and structure of the Programme.I’m so excited to be leading the delivery of this project, working alongside world-class students and industry leaders.
Last year, 73 students were placed in an industrial placement and the bar has been raised this year, with the target now being 100 students. This is ambitious but given that we are working with 11 Universities with a range of different courses this is achievable.
The Data Lab and MBN solutions are passionate about plugging the data skills shortage in Scotland and this Programme is aimed at giving the students their first taste of industrial experience, which in turn should give them the skills they need to succeed in the future. It’s very refreshing to see so many companies eager to work towards the benefit of Scotland.
The Scottish FinTech community have previously stepped up to the plate and engaged with this Programme, including HSBC, Clydesdale, RBS and Tesco Bank. Start up and scale- up companies like The Lending Crowd have also taken part in this in this initiative with great success. The students have added great value to leading edge and creative projects in FinTech companies and are set to continue the trend this year!
Virgin Money and other challenger banks have also embraced this Programme, showing that there are no real barriers to get involved, whether you are a company with 20 folk or 2000, there is nothing to stop you taking part!
The FinTech community is a vital part of the Scottish economy, by giving these students a taster of their world, they are adding more skills to already skilled and dedicated students. Moving forward, this is invaluable to both parties and will ultimately enrich both parties.
Applied Fintech Project – Final Event and last update
Blog written by Elisabetta Trasatti, Vice President at UoG FinTech Society
Last Friday night, an entertaining final event at the Glasgow University Union concluded the first Applied FinTech Project (AFTP), organised by the UoG FinTech Society.
Almost one hundred people, including students, professionals and academics, attended the event. With two keynote speakers, a buffet dinner, and the UofG Jazz band playing throughout the evening, the project could not come to an end in a more successful way. In the words of one of the AFTP mentors,
“the event was very well organised: great location, very good and fitting music, and a great jury.”
In case you are hearing about the Applied FinTech Project for the first time, here is a quick run through the ideas and aims of the project.
The AFTP has been designed as an experiential learning opportunity for students, who got the chance to work in teams on a hands-on FinTech case over the course of four weeks.
The project was launched in September with an Information Session at the University and immediately gained the attention of students from different degree subjects and years of study. When reviewing applications, the UoG FinTech Society board was immediately impressed by their quality. Applicants ranged from Computer Science to Engineering, to Economics, Philosophy, Business and Psychology students, and all showed great interest in FinTech, as well as a strong desire to develop their team working and communication skills.
The 25 selected participants, both Undergraduate and Postgraduate students, were divided into 5 teams and given a case provided by the startup Orca Money regarding its expansion strategy in the EU. The teams also got the chance to participate in a workshop organised specifically for them by Deloitte and were assigned a mentor to guide them throughout the project. The mentors, working at Previse, Castlight Financial, Deloitte and Morgan Stanley, both communicated with the teams via email and met with them in person, in order to talk through the challenges the students were facing in their research and give them useful advice.
Last Friday, the teams’ presentations clearly showed all the hard work and dedication that each one of them had put into the project. Not only they presented their findings, but also produced a detailed written report which the judges could read through to get a better understanding of their solutions. As with the mentors, the UoG FinTech Society could not be prouder of having such a great board of judges, of both academics and professionals, participating in the final event.
Another tremendous feature of the evening was the chance for attendees to hear two inspiring keynote speakers. Stephen Ingledew, CEO at FinTech Scotland and Keith O’Donnell, Technology Innovation Lead at Morgan Stanley, provided insights into the Scottish FinTech ecosystem, the current and future trends in FinTech and the ways in which large companies like Morgan Stanley are encouraging innovation in this sector.
The project participants all seemed to enjoy the event and provided positive feedback also regarding the case, their respective mentor and the overall experience they got from participating in the AFTP. As one of the participants stated,
“it doesn’t happen every day to have people say Hey, I worked on an EU expansion strategy for startup X during my second year of university!’ (Imagine saying this in an interview!).”
As it has proved to be such an enriching experience for the students involved, the UoG
FinTech Society hopes to see the Applied Fintech Project become an established society tradition for the years to come. Reaching and involving even more students in the project is one of the society’s main aims, for which the students’ feedback is shaping up to represent a very effective marketing tool:
“How to absorb business knowledge, make new friends and communicate with industry experts in one month? Join the AFTP!”.
The Applied FinTech Project at the University of Glasgow – update
Article written by Elisabetta Trasatti, Vice-President of the University of Glasgow FinTech Society
The Applied Fintech Project (AFTP), organised by the University of Glasgow Fintech Society, is shaping up to be one of the society’s greatest achievements since being established.
After being launched in September, the project is rapidly approaching its final steps, with the final event being in about two weeks.
The Applied FinTech Project has been designed by the society as an innovative opportunity for University students, who often feedback the lack of practical and experiential learning opportunities in their studies. The aim of the project is in fact to give students the chance to work on a “live” business case and come up with a solution in their team which the business can benefit from.
The case has been kindly provided by Orca, an Edinburgh-based Fintech startup which operates in the peer to peer lending industry. The society has been in close contact with the Orca team during the past months to decide which type of business case would best fit the AFTP challenge, with a particular focus on how to make best use of the diversity in the participating teams.
In fact, apart from receiving far more applications than expected, the UoG FinTech Society was impressed by the variety of degree subjects, years of study and backgrounds of the applicants. The 25 selected participants’ degrees range from Business to Computer Science, to Engineering, Psychology, Data Science and Law just to name a few. Another impressive feature in the teams’ composition is the fact that there are two Postgraduate students in each team. This is impressive considering the usual difficulty for student societies to actively engage Postgraduate students.
The project provided the teams with significant support throughout the working month on the case. In fact, each team was assigned a mentor or a pair of mentors, who could be contacted at any point during the project to get advice and help with the case.
A special mention in the support given to the teams goes to Deloitte, which has been AFTP event supporter. The team at Deloitte has not only provided mentors for two of the five teams, but has also organised a successful workshop at their Glasgow offices in which all the project participants received an insight into Deloitte’s work in automation and RPA solutions, as well as tips and advice on how to approach the AFTP challenge.
In two weeks, on Friday 16th November, the five teams will have the chance to present their solutions to a board of judges, composed of both academics from the University and professionals who have developed their competence and expertise in FinTech through their work in companies such as Morgan Stanley and Deloitte, as well as startups such as Previse and Orca.
Stephen Ingledew, CEO at FinTech Scotland, will attend the event as a keynote speaker and Keith O’Donnell, Data Engineer at Morgan Stanley, will also offer his contribution to the event as a speaker.
The evening, which will be at the Glasgow University Union, will be accompanied by live music performed by one of the University of Glasgow Music societies. Guests will also be able to network over a buffet dinner and drinks, thanks to the society receiving sponsorship from the Adam Smith Business School.
A FinTech degree for today and the future
Blog written by GB Ibikunle, PhD – Director, MSc Finance, Technology and Policy
Director, FinTech @ the Edinburgh Futures Institute
Decades of relentless technological advancements and new regulations have altered how financial services are delivered and trading of financial instruments in financial markets. Markets and financial products have never been more complex, with algorithms, rather than humans, now executing the majority of trades in financial markets, determining consumer credit-worthiness and interacting with consumers in the delivery of financial services.
The skills required to succeed within the finance sector have thus inevitably become more diverse, with financial institutions, looking to take advantage of the growing availability of data, demanding increasing levels of technological and financial sophistication from new recruits as well as existing workers. Indeed, in the finance sector, the ability to develop complex technological solutions is now as sought after as the understanding of the economic interactions generating big financial and consumer data.
This development and the pace at which it has emerged have led to a yawning skills shortage in the nascent sub-sector at the intersection of finance and technology ”“ the so-called FinTech sub-sector. Leading global universities such as the University of Edinburgh, have a responsibility to respond to knowledge gaps in the global workforce such as has become evident in FinTech.
Hence, we have responded with a new Masters level degree programme. Developed over a 30-month period of intensive curriculum building, which involved extensive interactions between our world leading academics/researchers and global industry leaders , our MSc in Finance, Technology and Policy (FTP) offers a unique degree sitting at the intersection of the three most important drivers of a modern economy ”“ financial services and markets, technology and policy.
The programme applies the core principles of financial economics and economic sociology with practical skills in programming, machine learning and big data
analysis within a problem-based learning framework to help students develop the skillsets that are relevant for FinTech roles of today and the future. Students on the programme work with industry partners to develop innovative solutions to live challenges as part of student consultancy projects sponsored by industry partners.
Generally, FinTech-related degree programmes and courses exclusively focus on the
vocational skills aspect of educating FinTech professionals. FTP as a programme focuses on this aspect as well. We believe that being able to apply machine learning approaches to solving problems and developing new and innovative products in finance is critical to building a successful career within the growing and vibrant FinTech sub-sector. However, we are also convinced that being able to critically engage with the core debates within the finance sector as it undergoes a technological transformation is equally important.
Therefore, while the programme offers students an unvarnished view of the functioning of existing financial markets and financial services structures, it also advances criticisms of the current set up and presents a basis for the development of alternative markets and financial products.
Markets are often taken as a given, with unspecified origins ”“ in current policy and academic debates. FTP is designed to contribute a strident policy-based argument to this ever-growing debate by weighing in on competing arguments. The programme explores the social anthropology and political economy of meanings and representations within which markets are embedded.
Relevant works for this task include economist Douglass North’s work on the implicit and explicit cultural meanings of markets and Susan Strange’s work on casino
capitalism that deconstructs current money markets and financial capitalism. This unique focus on critical economic sociology and market policy issues distinguishes FTP from all the other existing FinTech educational offerings. With the critical thinking skills students develop on the programme, they are able to reflect on the interactions between finance and technology on the one hand and policy evolution on the other.
This kind of consideration offers students the opportunity to meaningfully engage with the possible consequence of the solutions and innovative products they develop, especially how they may influence the trajectory of policy.
The relevance of FTP for the FinTech sub-sector today and in the future is not in doubt. In order to ensure that this continues to be the case, the programme is supported by an external advisory panel, with members drawn from regulatory agencies, finance and technology firms, as well as firms operating at the intersection of finance and technology.
The panel provides advice on curriculum development and employability issues. Furthermore, we offer an extensive range of entrepreneurship initiatives designed to help students develop innovative products and take them to the market within months of programme completion.
In the final analysis, I think the main selling point for FTP is that the degree is a University of Edinburgh offering. University of Edinburgh is a university with an academic pedigree of historic proportions. As a global university, we have been delivering impact research on a global scale since the 16th century. Today, we continue to lead in many areas, including machine learning/AI, economics and sociology ”“ all the critical building blocks of the MSc Finance, Technology and Policy.
Applied Fintech Project at the University of Glasgow
After the many important achievements during its first year of existence, the University of Glasgow Fintech Society is delighted to share its ambitious plans for the upcoming academic year.
Now that the new academic year is approaching, the society aims to develop even more by offering innovative learning opportunities.
A proof of this is the Applied Fintech Project (AFTP), a 7-week-long activity based on experiential learning, which will take place between September and November 2018.
During the working period, the teams will be supported and guided by mentors (University of Glasgow alumni and/or professionals) and they will be asked to prepare a report and a presentation to show their work.
The AFTP will end with a final event on Friday 16th November 2018, during which the teams will have the chance to present in front of an audience of academics, professionals and students. A board of judges will then deliberate which team has presented the best solution to the case.
The event, taking place at Glasgow University Union (GUU), will also represent a great networking opportunity for everyone involved.
The Applied Fintech Project is not only an exciting opportunity for the students and the businesses involved, but also the first project of its kind organised by a student-led society in Scotland.
Fintech Society members will work in teams to map out the challenges and opportunities faced by the businesses with regards to Fintech, drawing on cross-disciplinary research to devise tailored insights and potential solutions for the firm. At the same time, the startup providing the case will benefit from having the opportunity to gain another perspective on the specific Fintech-related issue from university students. Furthermore, the business will havethe chance to promote themselves among university students interested in technology,finance and innovation.
Apart from the kind support received by Orca in the provision of the case, the AFTP is supported by the UofG Fintech Society’s main sponsor, Previse, a successful Fintech startup that uses an artificial intelligence solution to support instant payments between corporates and SMEs.
Thrive in the Digital Age 2018: Focus on future Leadership and skillset
Shifting from an age where humans had to adapt to machine interfaces, to a new era in which machines adapt to human interface. How will the paradigm shift to natural AI affect the way we work and how we interact with technology? The changes in digital space are affecting us as customers but what about us as employees and our career paths? There are many unanswered questions in todays fast changing technology landscape but with changes and uncertainties often comes opportunities and innovation.
Tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. “Thrive in the Digital Age” brings together Keynote speakers from Google, Accenture Digital, Fintech Scotland, RBS and DLA Piper. Keynotes will share latest news of their fields, from new discoveries to new applications. They will also focus on career outlook based on their vision of the changing landscape in their disciplines as well as how they are working to influence the future.
Why Attend
Get inspired
Industry pioneers will share their vision on digital era, future leadership and how to accelerate your career.
Drive a discussion
Ask and discuss all your burning questions with industry experts during our panel and networking sessions.
Networking
Meeting like-minded people in a lively and friendly environment with food and drinks.
Supercharge your Career
Make this Thursday a day to recharge and refocus your career.
Contribute to a great cause
All earnings from the conference will go towards the Prince’s Trust. While developing yourself, you are supporting young people’s growth.
What’s included in your ticket
✓Access to all speeches
✓Take part in our panel session
✓Access to our booths
✓Energetic brain food, including, refreshments throughout the day
✓Access to post-conference drinks reception
How Returners can address the FinTech skills gaps and increase diversity
As the FinTech sector in Scotland is rapidly growing there is the need to consider a variety of talent pools in order to fill the skills gaps. Women Returners, the UK experts in enabling the return to work of highly-qualified professional women after an extended career break, has received Scottish Government funding to manage a cross-company returner programme within FinTech for employers in Scotland.
Hazel Little, Coaching and Programme Manager, Women Returners says “This is an excellent cost-effective opportunity for FinTech companies to address skills gaps and increase diversity with gender, age and experience. Returners are a relatively untapped talent pool that bring a wealth of professional experience, maturity and knowledge to the business.”
The Returners to Business Services Scotland Programme follows the success of the Returners to Financial Services Scotland Programme which was launched earlier this year in partnership with 12 leading financial companies including RBS, Standard life, Prudential, TSB and CYBG. All participating companies have reported that the programme has been a success for their business and over 75% of the returners have been offered ongoing roles, a testament to the high calibre of talent on the programme.
About the programme
The Returners to Business Services Scotland programme will enable Scottish employers to access and support 1-5 returning professionals in Edinburgh and/or Glasgow in a highly cost-effective way. Employers will be within business services including fintech, financial, legal and consultancy. The placement will run for 16 weeks, November 2018 to February 2019, and will be driven by employers’ recruitment needs.
Women Returners will provide employers with expert consultation, best practice guidance, promotional and manager support, including a returnship toolkit, programme advertising and line manager training. Returners will receive Career Returners Coaching Programme through four group workshops. The full cost of this is covered by the government funding.
Participating employers will provide CV worthy work (either a project or BAU role) and an internal buddy and mentor and will pay the returner salary at a professional level. There will be a good possibility of permanent employment at the end of the programme.
The business benefits
Employers will be able to tap into the wealth of returner talent in Scotland. The Returners to Financial Services Programme received over 450 applications with many employers hiring additional returners based on the high calibre of talent that they met with during the recruitment process.
Employers can increase diversity (age/gender/experience). This programme, which is aimed at professional women, enables employers to target business areas where they would like increased diversity. The previous programme filled several placements within IT, an area which is notoriously difficult to attract women.
Refill the female talent pipeline and improve the gender pay gap. Bringing experienced women back in at a level in line with their experience helps to build the female talent pipeline at professional levels and to address the gender pay gap.
Growing your Own ”“ the natural antidote to the Data Talent Shortage
This article was written by Robin Huggins, Director of Academy & Client Services for MBN Solutions
Following the success of 2016/17’s Data Lab MSc Placement Programme, the challenge for us was simple: How to deliver “Bigger & Better” results.
2017’s Programme increased in size and complexity with student and participating University numbers growing.
Last year’s results were spectacular ”“ almost 50 students placed into dissertation-worthy Industrial Placements with Scottish organisations. Over 75% of these students immediately securing permanent roles with their summer “host company” or similar Scottish organisations.
How do we improve on that?
The process began late in 2017 with a team from MBN Solutions visiting each of the participating MSc. courses to deliver Employability training under our MBN Academy #MBNSkills banner.
We’ve been working with students for a number of years now so are well versed in delivering a balance of factual and fun based activities designed to achieve one objective: Improve the soft skills, domain expertise and Employability prospects of each student we engage with.
Following our tour of the campuses of Scotland we then worked on an individual basis with students to understand their Placement preferences.
Then, we moved on to the tiny matter of generating enough projects for this group of students to be placed into.
Did we mention there were over 100 Data Lab funded students this year?
Ok, a considerable amount of these students indicated that they’d be more interested in University-based projects, but that still left a large number ”“ based on projections from last year’s Programme – we estimated at least 70 would require an Industrial Placement. How this was to be achieved was a combination of inspiration, perspiration and, to be frank, some desperation!
It’s “hats off” time, now ”“ and we’d like to thank the amazing organisations that we’ve been privileged to work with over the last few months. In a exercise of this nature, without the support of the Scottish business community, our and Data Lab’s efforts would be fruitless.
There are too many to mention each and every one by name in this blog but thanks to Scottish Government, NHS National Shared Services, Wood McKenzie, NCR, Merkle Aquila, Mudano, VShips, Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Power who all agreed to host more than 1 student this summer.
Roger Halliday, Chief Statistician and Data Officer at Scottish Government said
“We’re delighted to be taking on 5 people as part of their data science MSc this year. My ambition is to systematically improve outcomes for people in Scotland with data: saving time, money and lives. Data Lab and MBN Solutions play an impressive role in ensuring we get high quality data scientists”.
So, the months between February and May of 2018 saw us frantically working to match students to projects, facilitating meetings and introductions, dealing with feedback and, most importantly, handing over each and every successful placement to The Data Lab.
The Scottish FinTech community stepped up to the plate in a huge way and I’d like to thank RBS, Clydesdale Bank, Sainsbury’s Bank, Royal London, Aberdeen Standard Investment, Tesco Bank and Lending Crowd for their support throughout this period.
We’re delighted that so many students will receive their first experience of commercial Data Science within these organisations and we are sure their experiences will contribute to a very bright future.
Sainsbury’s Bank Chief Data Officer, Mark Hunter wrote “
Sainsbury’s Bank is delighted to be participating in this year’s MSc placement project. It is really important for the future of Scotland’s data industry that our students get exposure to real-world’ data projects and hopefully this experience fuels their desire to bring their skills to bear in Scotland after graduating. MBN have expertly managed the process of marrying our projects with the students who’ll benefit the most from the experience”.
So, with the Programme completed for another year, what did the results look like?
We are delighted to say that we exceeded last year’s total ”“ and more than matched our initial projection for this year ”“ with a total of 73 students securing Industrial Placements.
These students were placed with a variety of Scottish businesses; Start-Ups, large corporate organisations, SMEs and the public sector. Everyone played their part. From Aberdeen in the North, to Ayrshire in the South, students will be working on real-life Data Science projects throughout the summer that will greatly enhance their domain expertise and, ultimately, Employability prospects.
The last word?
We’ll leave that to one of the amazing students we were honoured to assist.
Kieran Kyle, an MSc. Student from the University of Strathclyde’s Data Analytics course said:
“The information provided at the Employability session was extremely helpful, not only for helping me find my placement, but also for carrying over into further job interviews. I managed to secure a placement with Standard Life, an incredible opportunity that I cannot thank Rob and the MBN team enough for, it is certainly something I would never have imagined just a few years ago”.
Be a ”˜Young Legend’ with the Visit Scotland Business Events team this year
VisitScotland’s Business Events team, responsible for attracting meetings & conferences into Scotland has recently launched a new award for young people to become one of VisitScotland’s three Young Legends’ part of Scotland’s Year of Young People.
As the first ever digital only Legends’campaign, the call has gone out for talented individuals to get involved.
A reason for fintech entrepreneurs to get involved
The Young Legends’ awards will recognise innovative work in key sectors for Scotland ”“ of which Fintech is key. The Business Events team are looking for young people (aged between 18 -26 years) who are building businesses of their own, growing existing businesses or conducting research & innovation in this sector.
They are looking to reward ideas and innovation which has the potential tobe legendary’ in the widest sense. In this connected world it will no doubt be work which has national and international reach whilst being rooted in Scotland which has a long history of being one of the financial capitals of the world.
Beyond fintech
The Young Legends award will celebrate Scotland’s reputation for invention and innovation by recognising leading-edge work. Of course, it won’t just be the financial world which provides this innovative swell of activity amongst this age group. Being a Young Legend’ could mean you workfrom any of the which country’s key economic and academic research sectors such as Technology, Engineering, Energy and Marine Biology or the creative arts including design or food & drink. Entering the awards also means the shortlisted finalists will be able to network amongst this talented group.
What about the prize?
The three lucky “Young Legends” will win a unique opportunity to see their work championed internationally within the Legends campaign throughout 2019. The Young Legends’ awardsceremony will be held in November 2018.
The awards are part of a larger digital campaign, Legends’ by VisitScotland Business Events which launched last November. The “Legends” digital campaign highlights a specific Scottish economic orsocial theme every two months, sharing original online content, blogs and video podcasts from every region of Scotland.
The sectors featured are: Technology; Education; Life Sciences; Engineering; Digital; Marine; Creative; Energy; Health; Space; Food & Drink and Surgery. The campaign will run for two years in total using the hashtag #ideasbecomelegend and the ultimate aim is to attract to Scotland even more business events (conferences, meetings and congresses) from each sector.
Neil Brownlee, Head of Business Visits & Events at VisitScotland, said:
“Scotland’s reputation for innovation stretches back hundreds of years and continues to this day. We think it’s time toshowcase the breadth and depth of the country’s young talent who are heirs to the many famous Scottish inventions and innovations that are known throughout the world. I encourage all young people working in Scotland to apply for the Awards ”“ we know there are some unsung heroes outthere who deserve to be recognised for their amazing work and pioneering spirit.”