Mourant Ozannes and Beaulieu have joined forces to launch the new centre, which will see up to 30 people at a time, outside of school hours, given a range of technology training in areas such as coding, website design and the use of 3D and virtual reality technology.
The project is being co-funded by Beaulieu and spearheaded by assistant head of curriculum and technology at the school Rory Steel. Mourant Ozannes has provided funding to purchase hardware for the centre. Mr Steel said: ‘The support from Mourant Ozannes has enabled us to get what started as just an idea off the ground and make it a reality. The facilities we are providing at Beaulieu will plug a significant gap in providing easily accessible specialist training and education in technology.
‘Our core aim is to fill the so-called digital divide, and we will focus on inviting local community groups and charities to come into the centre and be upskilled across a range of areas.’
The Learning & Innovation Centre will be kitted out with 30 iMacs. Beaulieu is one of the first schools in Europe to have super-fast gigabit Wi-Fi. Mourant Ozannes Jersey office managing partner Jonathan Speck said: ‘This is an important development for Jersey, and we are very pleased to be helping to make it a reality for the Beaulieu team.
‘The new Learning & Innovation Centre will play a key role in developing the community and educating our future leaders. It will also put Jersey on the map more broadly, as this initiative is believed to be the first centre to use gigabit connection to deliver free services to the community in the UK.’
The new centre will be run by IT specialists as well as students, who will be encouraged to help run sessions.
