BIMA D-Day 2012 was a great success and we are confident this will have kick-started some budding digital careers. The day resulted in over 200 student entries to the competition with fantastic work across the 5 categories of digital design, mobile, coding, viral videos and social media.

Nearly 100 professionals gave up their day to help and went into the schools to speak about their roles and experiences. Feedback was great, with the students all agreeing that a career in digital was something that D-Day had made them seriously consider.

The overall winner of the event was Dr Challoner’s Grammar School who were assisted by Hertfordshire agency Netcel. Netcel received a special BIMA award as recognition of their achievement.

The winning entry was ‘Yappy Dog’ from students Matthew Dagnall, Laurie Bishop, Chris Mann, and Matthew Walker.

The website and app concept helped users plan dog walking based on their dog’s weight, breed and age. As well as suggesting dog walking routes, the app also suggested local dog-friendly pubs that you can visit after your walk.

Details of the other category winners can be found on the BIMA D-Day website.

Feedback and Survey Results

As well as the competition and events of the day we also conducted a survey to understand what young people knew about our industry. A total of 502 participants completed the questionnaire, representing 28% of all participants. The survey highlighted:

• A lack of awareness amongst the young people of the digital industry in its entirety and the breadth of career opportunities available. 63% of students surveyed were not aware of the many different jobs or opportunities in the digital industry.
• A lack of resources and teaching in schools to make pupils aware of digital as a career. 75% of students surveyed had never seen any information on, or been taught about working in the digital industry, and 49% stated they did not know where to find out more information about digital careers
• A direct correlation between awareness of the digital industry and a desire to work within it. 74% of students surveyed stated that D-Day made them think more about a career in digital.
• A day such as D-Day can be an inspiring way to generate awareness and inject creativity, collaborative working and fun into the classroom (see Appendix 2 for feedback from teachers about the day)
• A commitment from the UK’s digital agency sector to support young people and the education system to increase the number of skilled digital young professionals in the UK, as demonstrated by participation in D-Day and through the feedback received (see Appendices).

Fundamentally, there is a need for more information about what a digital career means and the vast and varying opportunities within this industry. The current perception of the digital industry amongst this next generation is that of a career based around ICT or coding, rather than understanding the full range of careers available. Once this awareness is achieved it is possible to see a huge shift in the number of young people who would consider a career in this industry.