November 6, 2018

iDEA

The Challenge

“The pace of change in technology is irrevocably transforming the way we work – within the next 20 years 90 [per cent] of jobs will have a digital element. We have an evolving digital workplace which urgently needs a digital workforce.

I founded the Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (iDEA) to help people become economically active in the digital economy.

iDEA is a free platform-based voctech solution aiming to help plug the digital skills gap using an innovative Badge Store concept. This has been curated to help inspire people to become digital citizens, workers, makers, entrepreneurs, and gamers to enhance their employability; and to empower them to develop vital life skills.

The iDEA Booklet introduces the programme and includes the full curriculum.” (The Duke of York, LinkedIn.)

The Duke of York’s office worked with Digital Marmalade to develop ‘badges’ for iDEA. The challenge set by HRH, when the Bronze Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award was launched, was for one million badges to be completed by users within five years. Digital Marmalade are very proud to be involved with the project, helping iDEA towards that target. Nearly two million badges have been completed as of May 2019.

This is a great initiative, allowing DM to help iDEA make a huge difference to people as they develop skills, gain confidence, and learn more about the digital world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lc7ZZ3z7u4&feature=youtu.be

The Strategy

Working closely with HRH The Duke of York’s iDEA team, Digital Marmalade have created a series of online learning modules – known as ‘badges’ – towards the Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award.

For each skill learned, the learner receives a digital badge containing a number of points that they can pin to their CV. When they have enough points, they are awarded the Bronze, Silver, or Gold Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award.

Anyone can have a go at the badges – all you have to do is register on iDEA.

Digital Marmalade, over the course of 12 months have created a huge variety of badges. The first of which develops skills in constructing algorithms, with the particular goal of becoming proficient in automation via ‘The Internet of Things’.

Using some relatable situations and contexts for a range of people, the badge takes you through a series of steps that develop algorithms (or Life Hacks) to make your life easier.

For example, wouldn’t it be great if young people could set up a Life Hack to automatically tell their parents they have left school every day using a formula and the internet of things?

The badge proved to be a great success with users and the client alike, allowing the collaborative, creative relationship to evolve and flourish. Together, with the iDEA team DM then set about to work on a further set of very different, but equally immersive badges.

A series of ‘A Day in the life of…’ badges were next to be delivered. All designed to give users a taste of the necessary skills associated with a variety of digital roles, from games designer to digital researcher. These badges allowed users to try out real job roles to see what they liked – as well as learning some digital fundamentals.

Following continued success, DM were commissioned to deliver a further 10 badges, with a more specific focus on more topical and practical subjects such as social media setup, psychology in web design, GDPR, making websites, and advertising.

Two of these badges tackle the disparate, but equally significant, subjects of ‘Teamwork’ and ‘eCommerce’. These began with a clear story idea from the client, and it was up to Digital Marmalade to work with the team to mould the brief into something graphically and technically exciting for the learners to interact with.

The eCommerce badge focuses on specific systems that allow businesses to trade and grow online. This includes Electronic Funds Transfer, Electronic Data Interchange, and Supply Chain Management. The Teamwork badge explores the important subjects of team roles and team dynamics by incorporating some behavioural psychology such as the Belbin Test.

Having now created around 20 badges for The Duke of York (find out more) our presence on the iDEA platform is well established. However, each badge still requires significant planning and creativity to produce, with a view to making them innovative, educationally significant, and visually rich.

The Results

Digital Marmalade are extremely pleased with the results and, more importantly, so is the client. The Award continues to attract a lot of attention from a range of partners including corporates, tech giants, social enterprises, and educational institutions.

With over three quarters of a million iDEA badges having been completed so far, the award is only set to grow and evolve and become an integral part of many people’s digital learning. As with any project there many other parties involved, and the success of this one has also been powered by iDEA’s numerous Partners and Supporters, such as UFI Charitable Trust, The Peter Cundill Foundation, Social Tech Trust (previously Nominet Trust), Salesforce, Microsoft, and the University of Huddersfield and has resulted in iDEA catching the imagination of many.

“It is rare, in our world, to have the chance to work on project that gives on so many levels – diverse in scope, with creative freedom to help deliver a product that will make a huge difference to people’s life. The joint creative relationship that has been core to the success of our work has become the blueprint for any client/supplier relationship moving forward. It was all topped off magically when we were invited to the Palace for the launch and saw the inaugural Bronze winners receive their certificate from the Duke.” Tony Brennand, Project Lead, Digital Marmalade

You can find out more about Digital Marmalade’s work with iDEA on DM’s website, Twitter @digimarmalade, or LinkedIn.