Hayley Roberts has spoken of her ambitions for Tech Channel Ambassadors, revealing she wants it to become “national”.
Set to go live this month, the newly formed community interest company is seeking to raise awareness of the career opportunities across the IT channel.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, co-founder Roberts stressed that “anyone” can get involved with taking Tech Channel Ambassadors’ content out to schools.
The content is currently being finalised to ensure it is easy to consume, she said.
“I want it to be national. I want it to be well recognised. I want it to be the go-to-standard for people who want to take our industry out to schools,” she said.
“Anyone can get involved”
The TCA was unveiled in October with a mission “to assist in addressing the strategic failure over decades, to attract and retain sufficient talent in the IT channel”. Originally the brainchild of industry veteran Ian Kilpatrick, the initiative was formed by Kilpatrick, Roberts and Crayon UK GM Hayley Mooney (pictured below), and also includes Softcat’s Rebecca Monk and Rubrik’s Lisa Roberts.
Signing up will help businesses meet their CSR requirements and net them access to those being enticed from the schools, it claims.
It is also seeking individual ambassadors to go into their old schools to showcase their roles. They will be given access to a platform featuring assets such as Power Point presentations, FAQs and how-to documents designed to build their confidence in delivering this message into the schools.
“Anyone can get involved. You just take the content and stick your name and story on it,” Roberts – who is CEO of security VAD Distology – explained.
“It’s all well and good me or Hayley or Ian going into schools, but that’s a million years from where the kids are at. It’s better for the younger generation, who are more relatable to those kids, to do it.
“I want companies to create initiatives where, if you pass a certain probationary level or get to a certain stage, you have to go out and give a presentation to a school to pass the baton back.”
“We’re trying to create a bit of a wave”
Although the skills sets required across the industry are “vast”, an elitism has made the IT channel less accessible and attractive to new talent than it could be, Roberts claimed.
A shortage of potentially over 100,000 staff costs the industry around £1.5bn annually and is stifling innovation, the TCA claims.
“It’s a passion project for a few of us – why wouldn’t you want it to be a great, well-known industry?” Roberts said.
“There was an elitism about channel and tech for so many years – everyone was brandishing ‘I’ve been in the industry for x amount of years’, or ‘you know, I’ve done this role and that role’ – there was a typical circuit of rolling through different vendors or partners or distributors.
“It creates this barrier to entry for anybody that isn’t in that club, or hasn’t worked in the industry that long. I certainly felt it when I first came into the industry.
“We should be dumbing down and making it a lot easier for people to understand what tech, and channel specifically, is all about.”
Roberts added: “People sit there and moan that we’ve got a skills shortage. They’re not lying. But they’re not thinking about how to fix that problem.
“What we need to do to not have this problem in five, six, seven, eight years’ time, is to go back to where we need to educate on the careers themselves – go back to schools, colleges and universities and kids who are open minded as to where they should take their skill sets.
“Most people [who want to help] give up because they haven’t got the backing. That’s what we’re doing – trying to create a bit of a wave.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
