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Digital Skills Partnership Update

Our Joint CEO, Julie Hawker, gives us an update on the recently formed Heart of South West Digital Skills Partnership as it builds up momentum and starts to deliver fantastic outputs. 

“In January of this year I was elected to Chair the Heart of SW Digital Skills Partnership (HoSW DSP). I am very proud to take on this role with the support of people who’ve dedicated time and energy to making this new initiative a great success already. My own journey with the DSP started over two years ago with a meeting in London at which I learned about the plans for Digital Skills Partnership work nationally, and therefore began discussions about how this could link to more local work. We generated a good deal of interest and motivation for this proposal, and the HoSW DSP was formally launched in June last year. With additional capacity and resources now in place, including our brilliant new Partnership Manager Charlotte Collyer, we are now forging ahead with a range of developments in 2019 to make sure we make the most of all opportunities.  

Already the DSP has been involved with a number of key successes with new initiatives including: the provision of new Cyber Skills development across the UK led by DSP member, BlueScreen IT; a programme to develop digital leadership skills in Charities led by Cosmic; and most recently, the great news that the Institute of Technology bid for our region has been successful and will see many of our FE colleges obtain new funding to progress their plans to support digital skills development. The HoSW DSP has itself also succeeded in being commissioned to develop and deliver a new programme of digital skills focussed on innovations in the delivery of skills and more news will be shared soon on the programmes being offered.  

At the same time the levels of interest in DSP work has grown already in 2019 and we are welcoming new Partnership members, new potential collaborators and new supporters for our work. It’s an exciting time to be chairing this essential initiative and I am really looking forward to the year ahead to see how much we can achieve.”