Box UK teams up with Cardiff Metropolitan University to take on tomorrow’s challenges

From Problem to Solution in less than 5 days

Box UK have been closely working alongside first year students at Cardiff Metropolitan University. The students are studying for various different degrees in IT, from User Experience & Design, Coding, Cyber security to Software Engineering. This session was a chance for the students to showcase what they have learned so far throughout their course, being given 3 scenarios of current business challenges and asked to devise a plan to tackle them.

The objectives of the session were to increase revenue, increase market share and attract more customers. The students were provided with the brief on Monday, put into teams and had to devise and design a solution ready to present back to us on Friday. The students seemed up for the challenge, we also like challenges – it’s what Box UK do every day. This was all curated and organised by Jemma and her staff at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Friday was soon upon us, we sent in our team to see how the students had got on with their task- but more importantly how they came up with their idea, what tools they had used and how well it was communicated back to us. This is something we have to do ourselves on a daily basis. The team included the Head of Development, Head of Business Solutions, Head of Solutions Architecture and Head of HR. A friendly bunch, but nonetheless we wanted to see exactly how they worked, were there any issues with their solutions and would we have done something similar.

We made our way around the meeting area and watched them present. We had presentations that included Robotics, Artificial intelligence, Large Data Modelling Processes, Coding and all designed using tools that we ourselves use every day, now – how cool is that ?

To say we were impressed is an understatement – they have set the standard for future years. They have achieved this knowledge in the space of their first year. We wanted to reiterate to all the students, you don’t need to specifically have a set path to your future, we all work in different ways, Box UK is a very neuro diverse business that operates at the cutting edge of design and technology.

The job the students end up doing may not even exist at the moment. But with the mindset and capability to embrace technical changes added with some business skills, the future is there for them and also us as employers.

See you all again next time! Thanks for engaging with us, you all delivered. Also a massive thank you to Jemma and her team and the amazing facilities at Cardiff Metropolitan University and thanks again for the pizza, someone from Box UK had more than the others…

Peter Ogilvie

Solutions Architect

Peter has over 30+ years experience in IT across all aspects of both the private and public sector. Covering large enterprise and SME business. Technical background in telecoms, financial, pensions, NHS, eCommerce, SEO, Content Management Systems and a Member of CiSP.