We’ve had two great events at Civic Digits, but we’ll need your help for the third.
The first good thing was winning the Best Non-Profit category at the British Data Awards, which means we are now not just Civic Digits but the award-winning Civic Digits.
This being 2021, there’s been none of the normal dressing up and swilling down at a glamorous event, no statuettes or some comedian off the telly doing a turn, but none of that matters. It’s really something to get recognition from the data industry, and we can wait for the full red carpet when The Big Data Movie* sweeps the Oscars next year.
Second good thing was that in spite of it being 2021, we had a real away day where we took advantage – cautiously and responsibly – to get together in the real world and plan, dream, and eat cake together. You can see our attempt at being the cool new kids at a photoshoot here – cake not pictured.
The third event hasn’t happened yet, but it’s by far the most important of the lot. Later this year, we’re planning to put on a tour of more than 80 schools across Highlands and Islands, the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, and Dundee and Angus, giving 11-13 year-olds the chance to experience The Big Data Show online and do the SQA curriculum-approved workshops that’ll give them a good start in digital citizenship and data awareness.
We know from previous shows and workshops that these really work, helping people understand why data security needs to be part of everyday life, introducing them to ways of thinking about responsibility and opportunity online, Plus they’re a lot of fun, with our trademark mixture of making the audience’s own phones part of the show with top-notch actors and professional dramatic production values. It’s a unique experience.
To make this happen and to deliver the show and workshops free of charge to thousands of pupils needs support. Like many creative companies working in education, we’re constantly looking for a variety of grants and awards, and some are contingent on getting a degree of commercial backing. In this case, we’re looking for £10k, either as one sponsorship or split into smaller amounts.
If you’d like to help, want to know more about how it works, or know an organisation who’d like to be publicly associated with our work, click here for details.
AND FINALLY… yes, we knew we said good things come in threes, but in this case there’s a plus one – we’re putting on The Big Data Show at the Edinburgh Science Festival this summer. It’s online, of course, so you can sign up and play along – see what all the fuss is about. click here, as always, for more. (* There isn’t really a Big Data – The Movie in the works. At least, not yet…)