About

What is Digimakers?

Digimakers is a series of free hands on workshops for children (aged 7-18), parents and educators interested in being creative with electronics and computing.

These events aim to inspire the next generation of technical innovators, creatives and engineers by providing an introduction to ‘making’ in the digital world. From hacking hardware to programming software, we want to show you more ways to have fun with technology. We love using accessible, affordable, open source tools and technologies, like Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Scratch, Python, Processing and Unity 3D.

The triannual Digimakers event attracts over 400 young people to participate in engineering workshops and tech demonstrations. In addition, our team organises and leads University of Bristol’s “Work Experience” and summer programmes in co-operation with EDT and other professional organisations. Since 2017, Digimakers Roadshow has been a weekly programme with local schools and youth groups. All of our events are free to participants and connect students to their local community.

In July 2019, in collaboration with the Jean Golding Institute and with support from the Turing Institute and local businesses, a new annual initiative called Changemakers launched: an event that aims to break down stereotypes and highlight the excellent opportunities available to young women interested in a career in the tech industry. Over an exciting four days of innovation and skills development, inspiring seminars and industry insight, teams work together to develop a piece of technology to support a social or ecological campaign. In its first year, students at Changemakers – aged 14-16 – created engaging projects relating to education, LGBT+ issues, Islamaphobia and the environment with zero prior programming experience. The feedback from participants, students and teachers suggest that it was our most highly-rated event ever. The support of Ghyston, Graphcore, Just Eat, Mubaloo and Potato is much appreciated.

Digimakers is an ongoing collaboration between the University of Bristol and the Chartered Institute for IT (BCS) the activities are delivered by our students, industry professionals and members of the BCS.

Who am I?

I’m James and I began supporting Digimakers while studying Computer Science at the University of Bristol, from where I graduated in July 2019. I was also Outreach Officer for CSS Bristol in 2018-19.

As of September 2019, I work as Fullstack Engineer for Roam Analytics as part of the Silicon Valley Internship Program.

My personal site is mrvs.city, @jda0_ is my Twitter handle, and I’m jda0 on Instagram and GitHub.