Empowering young minds & unleashing their potential - Manchester Digital’s Future Innovators Challenge as part of the Digital Skills Festival 2025

By Emma Grant, Head of programmes at Manchester Digital

As part of its annual Digital Skills Festival, Manchester Digital has announced a new addition to our week-long event in February 2025. Our team has just revealed that the first day of the festival (Monday, February 10) will be Future Innovators Day.

Aimed at high school students right across the Greater Manchester region, this event will host the finals of the Future Innovators Challenge. This event is supported by Amazon, delivered in association with Teen Tech and will be held at their Amazon Manchester offices in the Northern Quarter.

All Future Innovator Challenge entries, regardless of those that get shortlisted as finalists, will be entered into the Teen Tech Awards to recognise the hard work and innovative ideas of all teams.

So together with Amazon and Teen Tech, we’re empowering Year 8 and 9 students from right across Greater Manchester to unleash their creativity and build tech solutions that make a real difference. From tackling environmental challenges to improving online safety, we can’t wait to see how these future innovators will use technology to shape a better world.

This offers students across Greater Manchester the chance to think big and innovate - and help shape their own digital future. There are lots of ways we’ll be celebrating success and recognising our team's innovation, with school awards, team and individual prizes and accolades.

Future Innovators Day will host the challenge finalists on February 10, 2025 at Amazon’s Manchester offices to pitch their ideas to a panel of tech experts.

We are really excited to be able to host this event and connect with so many high school students at a critical time in their education. Year 8 and specifically Year 9students are focused on looking at their GCSE options and looking at what subject path to follow so this is a chance to help them envisage a future tech career.

The Future Innovators Challenge focuses on developing technical skills, professional competencies and career visibility for young people in Greater Manchester, aligning with the Mayor of Greater Manchester's MBacc ambition to create the UK's first integrated technical education system, with greater equity and visibility for all young people.

Once schools have registered, they will be invited to our virtual information event on October 15, 2024 to find out more. Schools will also be able to access this as a resource after the event once registered.

The deadline for the Future Innovator Challenge entries is December 6, 2024.

What is the Digital Skills Festival?

Overall, the week-long Digital Skills Festival brings together tech leaders, businesses and startups along with schools, colleges and universities to celebrate tech skills and our growing tech industry.

For over a decade, the Digital Skills Festival has been a cornerstone event, uniting the tech community across Greater Manchester. Now it has been re-designed for a new era to help propel the growth of the regional tech sector and bring in our communities across the region to help them grow a career in tech.

This year's festival will focus on key themes - pathways into technology, talent, diversity, leadership, and of course, skills. The event runs from Monday, February 10 to Friday February 14, at three iconic cultural venues in the city centre which will be transformed into hubs of innovation, talent, and leadership.

As well as the Future Innovators Day on Monday, February 10, other events include:

Digital Her Day- Tuesday, October 11
Digital Her Day will be based at HOME Manchester and offers a whole series of workshops, panels and speakers to encourage women to consider a career in tech. From college age right through to career changers, we offer a really welcoming and inclusive atmosphere to talk about all of the options and pathways into a tech career.

Talent Day - Wednesday, February 12
This event is more than a jobs fair, attracting more than 2000 attendees, with a focus on early careers and different pathways into the tech industry. Taking place at New Century Hall, this day offers unparalleled opportunities for anyone looking for a career in the tech industry to come along and speak with leading tech employers, as well as finding out about apprenticeship opportunities.

MD Digital Skills Feast - Thursday, February 13

Our Digital Skills Feast brings together tech leaders to network and talk about our future tech skills needs.

On Friday, February 14, we’ll be celebrating the whole week and sharing our learnings across social media.