National Software Academy a hit at Digital 2015

The National Software Academy has made quite an impact at Digital 2015, Wales’ largest festival of digital inspiration and innovation.

Recently held at the Celtic Manor Resort and now in its third year, Digital 2015 was the most ambitious event yet, bringing together more than 1,300 people from all corners of the digital economy to learn, share ideas, make connections and develop business opportunities.

The newly established National Software Academy - established by the School of Computer Science & Informatics to produce highly employable, sought-after software engineers - was one of Digital 2015’s star attractions, creating quite a stir amongst both industry leaders and education specialists.

Students at the National Software Academy hosted a series of gaming workshops for school pupils at the event, in which they could experiment with coding to create their own bespoke version of space invaders.

The workshops proved to be a huge success for the 100-plus pupils who took part from schools including Llanwern High and Chepstow School, with most pupils commenting it was their favourite part of Digital 2015.

Based at The Platform, a new technology hub in Newport, the National Software Academy aims to deliver industry-focused degrees in software engineering, providing students with academic experience of relevant and leading-edge technologies delivered within an industrial framework, utilising industry-proven tools and techniques to facilitate transition into the job market.

Manager of the National Software Academy Matthew Turner said: “It was a great experience for us to be a part of Digital 2015 and to see the success of our gaming workshops with the school pupils. As a recently established initiative, it was the ideal opportunity to raise awareness of the Academy and gain greater support from industry for the project.”

This new partnership between Cardiff University, Welsh Government and industry leaders, aims to address the national shortage of skilled programming and software engineering graduates.

If you are from industry and would like to find out more about how you could be involved with the National Software Academy, please contact Matthew Turner TurnerM1@cardiff.ac.uk