City & Guilds Digital Industrial Board
A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to attend a Digital & Technology Focus group at the City & Guilds’ Head Office in London where the first agenda of the day was to discuss whether there was a need for Level 1 and Level 2 Qualifications in Social Media and Digital Marketing. This was quite an interesting discussion as at the beginning of the conversation, I felt that a Level 1 Qualification would be better merged into some kind of Digital Awareness qualification such as the ICT Functional Skills. However, as other voices from employers and training providers put forward their view it seemed that this could be a qualification in demand from the parents’ of Digital Natives (or anyone before “Generation X”). The Level 2 qualification would be for people who take on roles in the community looking after the Internet Properties of an organisation (such as a Church) and hence the focus would be “Digital Engagement” rather than “Marketing”.
The second element of the day that was under discussion was to review C&G’s Digital Qualification Strategy as they are beginning a process of updating their current portfolio to be fit for the future and meet the needs of employers’ current and future needs Some of the ideas on their roadmap is truly impressive with qualifications/units slated for development in:
- Virtualisation
- Cloud Computing
- Gaming/Apps Development
- 3D/Animation
- Robotics
- 3D Printing
- E-Learning
- VFX
The group put forward that there was also a need for Cybernetics, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Computational Linguistics.
At the end of the day, C&G announced that the focus group was the beginning of a brand new Digital Industrial Board to aid the development of their qualifications to ensure that they are always meeting the demands of the industry.
There was one caveat: next time I have to invite and bring at least one other person. So if you are reading this and are interested, drop me a line and I will make the appropriate introductions.
