I went along to Microsoft’s offices in Reading for an e-skills event called Big Ambition. It aimed to promote careers in IT to young women aged between 13 and 15.

I had a blast, I really enjoyed working with some really inspiring, creative, divergent thinkers from Chiltern Edge Community School. I facilitated a workshop where we had to come up with a new technology device/tool. We came up with PeMe – Personalise Me. A shopping experience like no other, where you create a completely realistic avatar, with your body dimensions, fashion tastes, celebrity personal advisers, all fused with social networking and links to other retail outlets.

I was impressed by the speakers but not so much by the (not as infrequent as I would have preferred) mention of consumerism/materialism; less of the ‘You can make loads of money in this sector and have flash things’ – please. Well money is important, but selling the the creativity behind it and the job satisfaction one can experience in IT is far more important I think.

Anyway, that was the only slight unfavourable thing I can mention, because everything else was great! It was well organised and splendid fun! Yay!