From the 8th until 11th of June 2015, three secondary school and four university students will have the once in a lifetime opportunity to visit the world's most innovative and successful technology companies in Silicon Valley.
Starting in San Francisco and making its way to San Mateo and San Jose, the group will have the rare opportunity to visit Square, Facebook, Tesla, LinkedIn, Google, PayPal and Edmodo. They will see how these companies work and be inspired by hearing from the very people that create products, which are being used by millions of people and have changed the world.
The visit is the grand prize the group won as highest scoring team after having participated in the nationwide Appathon 2014 competition. Students from primary and secondary schools across the UK came together with ideas for apps. University students build these ideas into prototypes.
Claire Higgins, Ellie Stevenson and Ellie Wilkie from Notre Dame High School in Scotland came up with the brilliant app idea ‘Smart Wardrobe’, which allows the user to create their personal wardrobe online, organise their clothes, set up an avatar of themselves and help plan outfits by garment type, colour, brand, make suggestions based on weather conditions. It also helps buying clothes from online stores.
Benjamin Moss, Evgeny Roskach, Joseph Mambwe and Patrick Siu from Cambridge University students created a business model around this idea by taking user experience and audience targeting into account as well as its impact and scalability, resulting in the prototype app ‘Smart Wear’.
Sherry Coutu CBE, Chairman of Founders4Schools, said about the trip: “We have a wonderful group of students and I wish everyone an informative and high impact visit that you will reflect upon and build upon for many years to come. I look forward to hearing your stories and future plans. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to our hosts for welcoming the winners. This is a fantastic opportunity for school and university students to be inspired about how they can influence our world”.
Terry Loughran | Education and Communities Convener Councillor, Inverclyde commented on the idea of the three young girls: “A remarkable achievement by three remarkable young ladies. We have a strong track record of invention and excellence and we can rest assured that tradition is in safe hands for the future”.