The BluescreenIT team attended the 2019 Tech South West first awards ceremony at the Mercure Hotel in Exeter, Devon to celebrate the growing regional excellence in Tech last night as finalists for the Commitment to Diversity Award.
The brand new Tech South West Awards showcase and celebrate the best of the region's tech sector, covering the whole region of Bath, Bristol, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. A proud moment for the team to not only represent the regions Cyber community, but also to represent as a finalist for our home city of Plymouth and HotSW region as part of the Digital Skills Partnership.
The team sat a little nervously as our nomination was called out for our Commitment to Diversity Award, as its been a huge investment for the organisation over what has been two years in the making. The award highlights the positive pathways we have created for individuals from a range of hard to reach backgrounds, providing what we think are unique opportunities to get into Cyber and IT through our internal apprenticeship development programme. These talented individuals have not only excelled and helped play an important part in becoming key team members of the regions first Community Cyber Security Operation. The centre now serves the region with affordable cyber services and in the process has provided businesses with a ready made cyber skills pool of talent to recruit from.
Sadly we didn't win the main prize, but great to be part of the regions tech celebrations. How can we grumble, as an operation we have had a great year for awards so far, which includes the 2019 Apprenticeship Champion Award from CompTIA and the 2019 Western Morning News Business Awards winner for best Apprenticeship Development Award. So to be runners up at the Tech South West Awards was no mean feat and shows the strength of the regions tech community..
We will be back next year to try our luck again and hopefully bring back some silver next time.