At TechResort we believe more needs to be done to help bridge the gap between formal education and employment. TechMatch is our first go at doing that.

There’s two problems we’re trying to solve. Eastbourne tech companies are having to recruit from London or further to get the skills they need, while we have our own homegrown talent in schools and colleges we need to nurture.

There’s huge value to be gained from relevant work experience. It opens our young people’s eyes to the variety of jobs within tech industry, boosts confidence and starts to build their professional network. However, current formal schemes often have a high overhead on organisations providing placements. They’re typically short, which means they get little return for the time and effort they invest.

Our solution

TechMatch aims to solve all this. Instead of offering a work experience placement, ’employers’ identify a self contained, low risk development project that would offer value to their business and solve a real problem.

TechMatch then matches these projects with the most suitable candidates, arranges a kickoff introductory meeting and offers support throughout the project.

Focussing on real

We’re working with real organisations on real problems to give real experience. For example, Alex is working with marketing agency PRG Ltd to build a ticketing system to track customer issues.

As part of a project by the Towner Gallery, Lewis Hobden is developing a mobile app that displays works of art featuring the South Downs. The app will be location aware and show the user a selection of paintings created close to their current location.

Ollie Hancock is working with digital agency, Switchplane to create a ‘Twitter controlled something’. The company is keen to explore how the Internet of Things can be used to connect objects such as motors with social media.

I’m running the TechMatch project for TechResort. For our pilot we’ve been working with Sussex Downs College and recruiting directly from their Computer Science and Software Development courses, but now we’re keen to expand our horizons.

We’re now keen to hear from employers with software challenges and students who’d like to take part in TechMatch. If you’ve got a project to share, or are a student looking for real world project experience then we’d love to hear from you.