The Salford business IN4 Group is delivering a new technology scholarships programme to secondary students in Blackburn and Darwen.
The new programme, CyberFirst MEGA Hub, will nurture over 600 pupils and mentor 50 scholarship students each year across the borough to secure the best digital technology careers.
IN4, which operates innovation hub HOST, the Home of Skills & Technology in MediaCity, has ambitions to establish MEGA Hubs across the North West and Greater Manchester boroughs, including Salford and Oldham.
Blackburn with Darwen Council, IN4 Group and its partners IBM, Northrop Grumman, KPMG UK, QinetiQ, CGI, Roke, and BT are committing more than £300k per annum into the MEGA Hub, with a plan to increase the investment in the coming years.
The new pilot was announced by the Leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council, Councillor Phil Riley, and the CEO of IN4 Group and Blackburn entrepreneur Mo Isap at a CyberFirst celebration event for schools and colleges across the North West.
Speaking about the MEGA Hub pilot, IN4 Group CEO Mo Isap said: “It’s a moment of great pride that I have the ability to further invest in the North West, specifically to support our talented young people who have the potential to be great but due to disadvantage, deprivation and discrimination end up being average at best.
“We grew up not knowing we had started life in the second-class carriage. My aim is to ensure all our young people belong in the first-class carriage of the technology express, which will take them to incredible destinations and, in doing so, make our borough great again in the 4th Industrial Revolution as it was in the 1st one.
“This will lay the foundations for the MEGA Hub model as we aim to nurture and unlock talent in our local authority regions through collaboration and co-investment across public and private sector partnerships.”
The CyberFirst and MEGA Hub programmes links closely to the government’s investment of more than £5 billion in its new National Cyber Force in neighbouring Samlesbury.
The programme aims to help meet the need for a highly skilled digital workforce in the emerging North West Cyber Corridor.
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