VocTech Podcast: Removing barriers in skills development

The Return of The VocTech Podcast, recorded LIVE at the Week of Voctech

In this first episode of a new series of The VocTech Podcast, host Sophie Bailey speaks to Diane Morgan (Director of Talent, Zinc VC), Dr Andrea Cullen (Lead Tutor & Co-founder, CAPSLOCK) and Mark Baxter (Technical Director and Co-Founder, Digitalnauts) about how to remove barriers in education, how to boost learner confidence, and how to build a use case for tech in learning within a corporate or workplace environment.

Those familiar with Ufi's will know boosting confidence is core to our VocTech Challenge, as this was a key issue identified in our Green Paper and White Paper, so this was a fitting launch to a fantastic Week of Voctech.

"We found that confidence is the biggest barrier; especially imposter syndrome" - Dr Andrea Cullen, Lead Tutor & Co-founder, CAPSLOCK

This episode features:

Diane Morgan, Director of Talent, Zinc VC | Twitter: @dmorgannyc; @zincvc

Diane loves to be at the intersection of education and business with expertise in building and scaling education & edtech and was most recently at workforce accelerator, Trilogy Education Services. She is former Associate Dean of Imperial College and London Business School. Diane is a Forte Board Member to advance women in business, and an Advisor & Angel Investor to startups in education, talent and tech. Diane is a systemic thinker who loves to make things happen with an ability to connect and match networks.

Zinc brings together the brightest minds to build and scale a brand new way to solve the most important societal problems faced by the developed world.

Dr Andrea Cullen, Lead Tutor & Co-founder, CAPSLOCK | Twitter: @stuff4andrea, @capslockcyber

Andrea has over 25 years’ experience in the tech industry and is one of the CAPSLOCK Founders. She co-authored and delivered the cyber security master’s degree at the University of Bradford and was Director of the Cyber Security Interdisciplinary Centre. She also has extensive experience working in industry as a cyber consultant.

CAPSLOCK is an online cyber security professional training programme, where you don’t pay a penny until you get hired. Created by University Cyber lecturers who wanted to provide something better and more accessible, currently re-training Taxi-drivers, Dancers, and Stay-at-home Dad’s in the world of cyber to fill the skills gap in names like the BBC.

Mark Baxter, Technical Director and Co-Founder, Digitalnauts | Twitter: @BaxterCodes, @Digitalnauts

Mark Baxter is the Co-founder and Managing Director at Digitalnauts. He is passionate about immersive technologies and how these technologies can help others learn. Mark is constantly pursuing new knowledge and is always eager to share it with others.

He helps companies to unlock hidden value within their business through the use of immersive technologies and has the pleasure of working with some of the worlds leading and forward-thinking business, developing long-term strategies and adopting Virtual Reality training at scale!

Digitalnauts is an immersive learning programme and in-system assessment platform for upskilling across industry including the construction, Naval, and energy sectors.

Sophie Bailey is the Founder and Presenter of The Edtech Podcast | Twitter: @podcastedtech

Sophie is the founder of the iTunes new and noteworthy, The Edtech Podcast. The mission of The Edtech Podcast is to improve the dialogue between ‘ed’ and ‘tech’ for better innovation, through storytelling. The podcast is downloaded from over 145 countries with the UK, US & Aus in the top 3. Sophie has spoken and moderated at a variety of events including SXSW EDU, Yidan Education Prize, ASU GSV Summit, and the Next Billion Edtech Summit. She is an industry mentor and advisor, a Reimagine Education, GESA Awards, Bett Awards and XPrize Adult Literacy judge, and previous Edtech50 and Edtech Digest winner.

Sophie is passionate about lifelong and everyday learning. If she’s not interviewing a University Vice-Chancellor, Edtech Investor, School Leader, or StartUp about education innovation, she’s engrossed in Teach Your Monster to Read or wrestling her lockdown baby. A keen cyclist, she has recently relocated to West Devon which she considers the English version of the Pyrenees. She is very lucky to work with a distributed team on The Edtech Podcast.

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