Select a region
Local digital marketing agency Switch is celebrating alongside a team of five, Year 9 pupils from JCG this week. The students, mentored by the Switch team, have been named National winners in the British Interactive Media Association’s (BIMA) Digital Day 2017.
Hannah Read, Ana Silva, Bethan Thomas, Charlotte Neale and Jess Greenwood took the title with their idea LOVE.PAW.U. idea; a pet-centred social networking app designed for LV=, Pet insurance allowing pet owners, pet sitters and vets to communicate and including a function to alert pet owners living nearby to keep an eye out if a pet has gone missing.
The Digital Day initiative organised by BIMA encourages digital experts to share their own career experiences with secondary school students and to offer practical advice on how they can get into the sector. Representatives from Switch including Faith Joyce, Digital Marketing Executive, worked with the students as they completed a specific challenge to compete for the national title of Digital Day Champions.
Commenting on the winning submission Trishelle Tailor of BIMA said “We received a huge number of submissions from schools all around the country and the quality was at an all-time high, so it was certainly not easy to judge but the winning team did an amazing job across all the judging criteria.”
Anthony Gribbon of LV= added, “What really differentiated their entry from the rest was the thought they gave to the commercial side of the product. Of the entries we received they were the only team to do this.”
The winning team will receive £500 for their school, winners certificates, automatic sign up to the Duke of York iDEA scheme and a chance to visit both the award winning USTWO studios in London and the Sky Academy Studios.
Damon Eastwood, Managing Director of Switch Digital, said, “We are absolutely over the moon to hear that the team from JCG, mentored by Switch, have been named as national winners in the Digital Day 2017 LV= challenge with their idea LOVE.PAW.U. It is important for us when working with youngsters on initiatives such as this, that we take them through the complete process; that includes the commercial elements as well as the creative side and the user experience. It’s great that the judges acknowledged this.”
“We were pleased to be a part of this great BIMA initiative for the third year and to highlight what fantastic opportunities there are for careers in this sector right now. We’re extremely proud of the team being the best in the country,” Stuart Thurgood, Teacher of Computer Science at JCG, added.
