Tell us about you and your role
I am a department head at Truro and Penwith College with some additional responsibilities across the Penwith site around student behaviour and operations. My department includes Creative Digital Media and Games Development. I was previously an IT Consultant working predominantly with mobile telecoms in the early 00s. I have worked on various development platforms over the years, preferring to teach programming and games development, but crucially have been obsessed with IT and computers since I got my ZX Spectrum in 1983.
What’s so important about digital skills?
I believe that every social and economic disadvantage that people face can be overcome with strong digital skills. Everyone is now able to access their entertainment digitally, but education and community is also within their reach, as long as we ensure that everyone knows how to access these resources. I would go as far as saying that strong digital skills can improve people’s health and well-being as much as their employment and social opportunities.
What are you hoping to bring to the DSP?
I’m hoping to bring an insight into the current educational language based on nearly 20 years working in Further Education and being a School Governor for Hayle, Cape and St Ives Academies. I’ve always been a champion of delivering current digital skills and ensuring that educators appreciate the platforms that businesses actually use, rather than what is easier to delivery for the qualification.
What’s special about Cornwall?
Cornwall is an exceptional landscape but more importantly it is filled with highly capable people who have learnt to be adaptive and responsive to change. Due to this, what could be an area with only tourism and agricultural industries, is filled with an abundance of creative and original enterprises that cover an enormous breadth of sectors and roles. Facilitating this is a number of collaborations and networks, the likes of which are unusual to exist in cities but thrive in Cornwall.
