Awards for students who designed app

Barking & Dagenham College students competed with other colleges around the UK at the final of the annual Digital Skills Project, scooping awards.

Working in small groups for the past 12 weeks, the 16-18-year-olds developed an idea for an app to tackle real-world issues that affect them on the theme of ‘addiction’.

They were supported throughout the project by a team of industry experts, who offered advice and workshops to help them design their app.

At the final, they presented their ideas to an expert judging panel, including representatives from the Metropolitan Police.

Topics covered by the finalists included: alcohol, vaping, social media, shopping, drugs, gambling, and pornography addictions. One of the Barking & Dagenham College student teams decided to design an app to tackle alcohol abuse and called it “Sobr’Up”. The other opted to design an app to tackle pornography addiction called “Pornderer”.

They impressed the judges and the “Pornderer” team scooped the award for Best Presentation and Aviel Murphy age 17 from Dagenham was named Student of the Year.

Valiyah Kerr, 17, from Ilford is doing a Digital T Level at the College and was part of the “Sobr’Up” team. He said:

“I got involved in this project as I wanted to get some experience of the business world and expand my skills to prepare me for the future. I was really nervous at first, but my confidence has grown. I’ve also improved skills like attention to detail which will be useful.”

Leading and hosting the event was Julia Von Klonowski, CEO of Digital Skills Consulting. She said:

“The judges and I were blown away by both the quality and the confidence shown by these young people. Many had never presented to such a large group before, making their achievements even more impressive.”