We’re helping Vodafone to lead the nation’s digital future, shares our Enterprise Partnerships Lead Emily Knuckey, who attended Vodafone’s Future Ready 2018 conference and writes it up below.
Yesterday I was excited to be invited to Vodafone’s Future Ready 18conference at its UK headquarters in Newbury. Mainly because it meant I got to wear those cool virtual-reality goggles that I’d seen others playing with and never got to try (jokes… I could barely figure out what I was meant to be viewing).
In all seriousness, I was keen to learn more about artificial intelligence, cloud services and the Internet of Things. I’ve always known Vodafone as a challenger brand and found it very aligned with Makers in that sense.
We’re both exploring the possibilities that technology can bring, we’re both helping the UK expand its pipeline of digital talent and we’re both advancing the UK as a digital leader.
Before the speeches, I got to look around the exhibit.
My fave (besides the VR goggles above) was the cow. Yes, the cow. Not just any cow — the mascot for MooCall, which Vodafone IoT have worked closely with in order to connect overworked, stress-ridden farmers to their animals.
The company has three main products that do this: a calving sensor, a “heat” monitor, and an app to manage them both. Beyond agriculture, there were a variety of sectors represented:
Since Vodafone is one of our hiring partners (who recently hired their first batch of Makers), it was super exciting to see the kinds of things they could get involved with building, which will have real social impact. One of these was the robot AV1.
In the UK, 72,000 children are missing out on their childhood due to long-term illness. In other words — in every sixth classroom, there is an empty desk.
The robot AV1 reduces social isolation. When a pupil can’t attend class themselves, AV1 will take their place. It is the telepresence robot for children and young adults suffering from long-term illness.
He introduced the event, talked about a transformed Vodafone UK and how Vodafone had invested more than £2bn in the nation, with another £2bn to come in the next two years:
“You will see a Vodafone that has digital at its heart and ambition in its blood.”
We then heard from Neil Blagden, Director of Digital & Commercial Operations, who announced our partnership with Vodafone.
At Makers, we believe that developing tech talent ready for today’s fast moving world of work takes an agile, accelerated and inclusive approach. Vodafone shares this philosophy.
This is why we’re helping their frontline employees re-train as coders. Frontline employees in Vodafone retail stores and contact centres who would like to make the transition to a digital career can learn to code with Code Ready, a new digital skills programme.
Code Ready is fully funded by the apprenticeship levy, which means Vodafone employees won’t have to pay a penny to retrain for a digital career. They will learn all the skills they need to become a developer and secure a new job with Vodafone as a result. Code Ready has started with a pilot in September, with a planned intake of 20–30 people in Manchester in 2019.
The Vodafone Foundation has been pioneering programmes and innovationsin a number of countries where it operates to address the challenge that some of the world’s most marginalised communities and citizens have to access education.
Currently, the Vodafone Foundation is working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to deliver classroom teaching through the Instant Network Schools programme, which uses specially-designed online educational resources and tablets to bring primary and high school education to children in refugee camps.
Another exciting moment was when we got to witness the UK’s first live holographic call using 5G technology. This was between England and Manchester City Women’s football club captain Steph Houghton in Manchester and a young fan in Newbury.
Houghton came up as a live full-size 3D hologram in the room we were in. There was no lag — thanks to the speed of 5G. This same technology could arguably be used for remote robotic surgery, for remote coaching and training in sport, for remote workers in offices. It was incredible.
Almost as incredible as the golf course I got to play on in Vodafone’s offices after the presentations. We got to look around the spots where Vodafone’s technology teams work.
It was lovely to see Clare Jolly, a Vodafone employee who has recently joined Makers (but works from Vodafone HQ). She blogs about her Makers journey here.
If you’ve got employees like Clare who want to retrain as software developers, learn more about how your business could use its apprenticeship Levy through Makers.
If you’d like to chat in person, and learn more about how your business could use our Apprenticeships program, join us at our upcoming Employer breakfast on October 2nd 2018.