Digital Xtra’s Grant Awards – United Kingdom

Objectives

• The Core Objective of Digital Xtra is to:
  • Inspire young people to learn digital technologies skills through high quality, exciting extracurricular activities, thus expanding the talent pipeline.
• Additional Secondary Objectives include:
  • Increase overall number of young people learning digital tech skills across Scotland
  • Dispel negative perceptions and stereotypes about digital technologies and careers in tech
  • Increase diversity and inclusion of young people learning digital tech skills especially among:
    • audiences from areas often excluded from digital tech activities through lack of local resources or geography (i.e., areas of high deprivation and/or rural isolation)
    • groups underrepresented in the digital technologies sector (i.e., girls and young women, minority groups, and/or children and young people with additional support needs)
  • Provide context to the skills being learned
  • Promote digital technologies as an attractive career path including highlighting the variety of careers in digital technologies

Funding Information

• Grants up to £5,000 will be awarded to schools and community organisations looking to start up or scale up extracurricular tech activities for young people.

Outcomes

• The Core and Secondary Objectives should aim to achieve the following Outcomes:
  • Increased number of young people studying computing science and other digital technologies related courses both in and out of school and beyond
  • Increased number of educational establishments and organisations delivering digital technologies related extracurricular activities
  • Increased meta-skills (innovation, social intelligence, self-management) and employability skills (confidence, resilience, communication, leadership) amongst young people
  • Ultimately increased number of young people pursuing a career in digital technologies
• Proposed activities must teach applied computing skills such as computational thinking, coding, robotics, games design, data science, or cybersecurity. Young people should also be given opportunities to apply this knowledge in meaningful and creative ways allowing them to become more confident with digital technologies.

Examples of what the grant can support includes:

• Financial costs incurred during the delivery of the activity e.g., staff wages, equipment and materials, room hire, catering, travel within Scotland (travel costs for young people is submissible as part of an application, however, all costs must meet the criteria of providing good value for money as judged by the Application Evaluation Panel)
• Staff, educator, or volunteer training (please note, any training undertaken must be essential for the proposed extracurricular activity)
• Course/content development
• Essential marketing and evaluation materials
• Software or hardware specific to the delivery of the initiative. Applicants will need to provide insurance, maintenance, and secure storage for any items and ensure the software/hardware is maintained to support the sustainability of the initiative
• Other costs specific to the delivery of the initiative and directly related to outcome may be considered provided their need is clearly explained in the application

Eligibility Criteria

• To be eligible for a grant award, applicants must meet the following criteria:
  • The Main Applicant is a UK registered company, UK registered charity, chartered body, local authority, school, college, or university actively involved in the provision of computing education and/or digital technologies related activities for young people. Please note, the Main Applicant cannot be a Partner or Supporter of Digital Xtra.
  • The proposed initiative meets the Core Objective of Digital Xtra
  • The proposed initiative is an ‘extracurricular tech activity’ • The primary audience are young people aged 16 years or under
  • The proposed initiative will commence after 1 July 2024 and finish before 30 June 2025 (as outlined in the ‘Project Plan’ submitted within the grant application form)
  • The proposed initiative will be delivered entirely within Scotland
  • The grant requested is between £500 and £5,000
• Applicants who have previously received a grant award from Digital Xtra may apply again provided a newly completed application is submitted. This includes both funding for a new activity or for an activity previously supported by DX but is being notably developed beyond the initial delivery and/or will significantly increase overall capacity beyond what has already been achieved. Previously supported initiatives which are similar in nature and/or projected to achieve similar Targets and Outcomes as previous years will not be considered.

For more information, visit Digital Xtra.