The Kainos Work Experience scheme shows students who are thinking about their first career steps the variety of roles available in a software company, as well as teach the crucial skills required to succeed in a software engineering team. It’s been incredibly rewarding work to see students come in with little or no coding experience really come out of their shells and contribute to a challenging team project.

Over this past year, I’ve really enjoyed working in partnership with CCEA to build a CPD programme that would allow primary school teachers the opportunity to build their confidence and skills within digital technologies. As well as making a difference in our local community, it’s given me opportunities to build relationships with other IT companies in Northern Ireland. I can’t wait to see what the next phase of the programme brings!

Kainos encourages employees to get involved in delivering Tech Outreach activities to kids in local schools to help promote confidence in young people’s ICT skills. I remembered the lack of ICT focused activities I had in school growing up, and I hoped that by offering a Code Club some kids could really benefit from the experience. The kids’ enthusiasm was infectious, and the rate at which they picked up programming was incredible.

We’ve brought Lego EV programming, web technologies, CodeBug robot programming and life skills to children from various walks of life, and the feedback we have had from them all has been fantastic. All of the people who hear about what we do come away impressed and the children, teachers and schools who have taken advantage of our Tech Outreach services have been thoroughly impressed by what we have to offer and extremely thankful for our time.