Our STEM outreach programme, Cambridge LaunchPad is back this academic year to inspire, educate and enthuse young people across Cambridgeshire, particularly girls and young women. Kicking off with a launch event last week, we are proud to announce that our core partners this year will be Arm, Marshall, Schlumberger and TTP (pictured, copyright Cambridge News).
The launch event was attended by Cambridge LaunchPad ambassadors from leading technology and engineering companies and representatives from schools and colleges across the Cambridge region.
The presentations opened with a welcome speech from Robert Marshall, CEO of Marshall of Cambridge (Holdings) Ltd, who originally initiated the LaunchPad programme in 2015. It was revealed that the TTP Group will be joining Arm, Marshall and Schlumberger as this year’s Core Partners. The Core Partners will be designing and delivering a programme of activities to students in the Cambridge area across the academic year alongside 15 other companies.
Professor Dame Athene Donald, Professor of Experimental Physics and Master of Churchill College, provided an inspiring and eye-opening keynote speech which highlighted the importance of STEM and the gender gap in education and careers. The biggest disparity is in Physics with only 20% of girls taking this at A-Level, which falls at higher education and decreases further in industry and academia.
Of Cambridge LaunchPad, she said “I’m delighted to support this great initiative for the Cambridge region. It’s so important to inspire more young people – girls and boys – into STEM careers.”
The presentations were wrapped up with a first look at the new Cambridge LaunchPad film, produced by Cambridge Filmworks. It is available to view on our YouTube channel here.
Cambridge LaunchPad is a 3-tier programme, where students are Stars, Innovators or Scholars, depending on their age. This year’s schools taking part are:
Stars: Abbey Meadows Primary School, Bar Hill Primary School, Cherry Hinton Primary School, Fen Ditton Community Primary School, Fulbourn Primary School, Home Education Network, King’s Hedges School, St Faith’s, Teversham CE Primary School.
Innovators: Bottisham Village College, Coleridge Community College, Comberton Village College, Home Education Network, Netherhall School, North Cambridge Academy, Parkside Community College, Stephen Perse Senior School, Swavesey Village College.
Scholars: Hills Road Sixth Form College, Long Road Sixth Form College, Netherhall Sixth Form, Parkside Sixth Form.
The businesses offering support for Cambridge LaunchPad are:
Founding Partners: Arm, Marshall, Schlumberger, TTP.
Associates: A14 integrated Delivery Team, Amazon, Amey, Anglian Water, Babraham Institute, Cambridge Cleantech, Cambridge Consultants, Cambridge Independent, Cambridge Regional College, Domino, Horizon Discovery, Microsoft, Mott MacDonald, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology, TWI, Morgan Sindall, Makespace, Zeiss.
Supporters: AstraZeneca, Churchill College, MathWorks, RealVNC, Skanska.
If you would like to find out about Cambridge LaunchPad, or our other STEM outreach activities, please email Anna Aldred our Cambridge LaunchPad Project Manager at aaldred@formthefuture.org.uk.
