Introduction

Our mission is to connect private, public and third sector organisations to create the digital skills ecosystem that Cornwall’s future needs.

The partnership harnesses the innovation in Cornwall to inspire our communities, transform educational landscapes, and create a sustainable digital economy where everyone thrives.

Strategic priorities

The four areas that the local DSP focuses on are education, communications, digital skills and jobs, and inclusion.

We have two operational strategies:

• Develop and maintain a publicly available work plan based on benchmarking and mapping
• Develop a future sustainability plan / fundraising strategy for the DSP post 2023

And a strategic priority for each of our four focus areas:

• Education: Transform work experience in Cornwall and ensure every school leaver is aware of how digital can support their career
• Comms: Position Cornwall as a tech hub, both to the outside world and to Cornish residents
• Digital skills and jobs: Upskill the current and future workforce to help Cornwall become the UK’s leading tech cluster
• Inclusion: Create the conditions for a tech workforce that embraces the value of highly diverse teams. We’ll also work closely with Cornwall Council’s Digital Inclusion team to further their aims.

For the Comms strand, the initial proof-of-concept project should be a short, sharp positive blast campaign ahead of the summer season, positioning Cornwall as a thriving and growing tech hub.

Audience

There are two audiences, and the same campaign should hit both ideally (and we think the right content would do this)

1. Cornish residents who are unaware of the tech sector and opportunties for them. We want them to feel:
   1. PROUD of where they live
   2. SURPRISED by what’s going on on their doorstep
   3. CURIOUS to learn more
   4. EXCITED about potentially retraining
2. The rest of the UK, especially those in the wider digital sectors. We want them to feel
   1. SURPRISED at the amount of activity in Cornwall
   2. ENVIOUS of the speed of growth and success of collaboration
   3. INSPIRED to take ideas back to their own businesses, invest in ours, or come and work for Cornish companies who are doing great things

Key messages

Brand Cornwall

• Cornwall’s tech sector is THRIVING and GROWING and EXCITING
• Cornwall’s tech businesses are working on global challenges like solving the climate crisis through alternative energy, cleaning up space, using AI to make government services more accessible to people … etc

Opportunties

• There are tech jobs in almost every sector. Marine, farming, space, manufacturing
• The tech sector – even here – pays well over the average
• There are jobs for anyone – you can be an amazing product tester with no coding knowledge
• There are some quite incredible opportunities to retrain for free… or to do an entrepreneurship degree… or to simply take the first step towards a career in the tech sector

Deliverables

A plan that includes interesting angles, compelling stories, and heroes that are underrepresented in the tech sector.

Coverage in local and national press, general and industry. Could be a mix of features, profiles, interviews etc. Print is important.

Amplified message online. We have created some videos about Digital careers which could be used as part of a social campaign. We could also run ads linking the key messages to places to find out more e.g. People hub/skills hub.

Timeframe

This project is due for completion before 30^th June 2022.

Fee

We have up to £6,000 available.

Next steps

If you are interested, please send a proposal to [email protected] by Wednesday 30^th March on no more than two sides of A4 outlining how you would approach this project and links to relevant examples of previous work. The proposal will be scored on:

• Value for money
• Alignment to DSP values
• Quality of submission
• Evidence of experience