14 June 2018

Kids create winning software solutions to help themselves flourish in a digital world

Children from across Aberdeenshire will be joined by experts from Microsoft, Outlay Entertainment and local universities as well as Education Scotland on Tuesday (June 19) when they compete in the final of Aberdeenshire Council’s GamesCon 2018 competition.

More than 1,300 primary six and seven pupils have taken part in the competition this year, with 84 finalists heading to RGU, Garthdee on Tuesday in teams of four to take part in a live coding exercise, finalist presentation and hear from a number of top speakers. 

The children have been working tirelessly on software solutions which bring the UK-led 5Rights initiative to life and hope their creations help their peers to access digital technologies more knowledgeably and fearlessly. These youngsters are now well-versed in what it means to be a programmer, graphic designer, document controller, researcher and presenter. 

They will also be joined by four secondary pupils who have been participating in a senior section of the competition, using micro:bits to create software solutions to real-life challenges. 

Councillor Gillian Owen, Chair of Aberdeenshire Council’s Education and Children’s Services Committee explained: “This is a really exciting way to engage children across Aberdeenshire in computer science and help develop our young workforce to be ready for a very digital world. It’s great to see such enthusiastic participation in any educational activity and we can’t wait to see the winning solutions.

“2018 is the Year of Young People and it will be great to celebrate the culmination of months of hard work by those participating in this event. Good luck and well done to everyone taking part!” 

An impressive list of keynote speakers will also be participating in the event and judging the final entries, including: Alan Armstrong, Strategic Director at Education Scotland; Timothy Licari from Microsoft Scotland; Recruitment Advisor Richard Thompson from Outlay Entertainment; and Dr Lynsay Shepherd who is a lecturer and researcher in cyber security at the University of Abertay. 

Vice-Chair, Councillor Mark Findlater added: “It’s great to welcome senior colleagues’ support from organisations across Scotland. The event is a celebration of creativity, problem solving, computational thinking, coding and teamwork, and I’m sure our fantastic judges will be looking forward to seeing all of this on the day.” 

The end result of the coding the winning teams will be working on at this exciting and dynamic event will be games or animations. #shiredigilearn #GamesCon18 #DigiLearnScot #DYW #yoyp2018 @Aberdeenshire @Digital_H2L2