PRESS RELEASE
- New initiative part of ‘HP for Education’ programme to give UK schools increased access to education technology
- Two schools announced as inaugural winners of the HP Community Tech Challenge
London, June 18th, 2018 – HP, in partnership with Microsoft and Intel, today announced the inaugural winners of the Community Tech Challenge - Glascote Academy from Tamworth, and Woodlands School from Essex. Each school has been awarded £25,000 to spend on technology products and services to help reinforce STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics) learning.
Every year the HP Community Tech Challenge will award four schools £25,000 to spend on technology products and services. Schools enter the competition by submitting their reasons for needing the fund and how its pupils will benefit. Entries are judged by a panel of HP, Microsoft and Intel education and technology experts.
“The opening submissions reinforced HP’s appreciation of the dedication and passion of educators across the UK; it was truly difficult to select one winner for our prize this quarter, which is why we chose two,” said Neil Sawyer, Education Business Director at HP. “We believe the Community Tech Challenge will help even more schools implement the technology needed to reinvent learning environments and boost the teaching of STEAM subjects.”
Winning schools are free to invest the money on any area of their tech infrastructure, from Wi-Fi improvements, to software updates, to hardware upgrades. Schools are also encouraged to collaborate with their local communities and help the environment by trading in unwanted devices for recycling. HP is aiming to recycle 500 devices through each school within six months of receiving the prize.
Claire Cooper, IT Lead at Glascote Academy in Tamworth, said: “We’re immensely grateful to be the recipient of the HP Tech Challenge prize. We’ve already seen marked success with our STEAM programme, and this award will help us build a greater digital learning culture within the school, providing our pupils with even more opportunities to develop STEAM-related skills through the use of leading technology.”
Simon Cox, Headteacher at the Woodlands School in Essex, commented: “Given over half of our 1,500 pupils have been diagnosed with some form of Speech and Language special needs, we understand how challenged students can be at a disadvantage during exams. We wanted to change that. With this HP Tech Challenge award, Woodlands will invest in a digital support platform providing students - once limited by their speech and language challenges - with the tools needed to truly excel.”
The Community Tech Challenge continues through 2018, with Q3 entries open until 29th June via nominations@hptechfund.com.
HP for Education
The Community Tech Challenge becomes the fourth pillar of HP For Education – HP’s wider education programme in the UK which aims to give schools more ways to access the technology they need to deliver exceptional learning experiences. In 2017, HP for Education saw £2.2m given to schools through a combination of cash and credit prizes, hardware and software. This year, it is aiming to give even more.
In addition to the Community Tech Challenge, HP for Education includes these additional existing programmes:
- Trade in or Trade Up with HP – Schools and Colleges can trade-in or trade up their old desktops, laptops and tablets, and HP will give cash reward of up to £200 to spend with any specialist HP for Education partner. Participants can put rewards towards HP products, software, consultancy, e-learning or buy training courses via third party providers.
- HP Learnability – HP believes cost shouldn’t be a barrier to students achieving the best possible outcome from their education. That’s why it has introduced HP Learnability, a parental purchase programme which helps schools equip students with the latest technology by working with parents to spread the cost of a student’s computing device, rather than paying a single lump sum up front.
- Ripple Effect Campaign – A collaboration between HP, Intel, and four of HP’s channel partners - XMA, RM Education, Academia, Softcat, and SystemActive - to deliver cutting edge technology to improve STEAM learning at schools around the UK. HP is offering schools the chance to win an HP STEM/STEAM Creative Learning Studio this summer when they buy HP and Intel® for education*. The Learning Studio, worth £8,600 RRP, consists of the following innovative, next-generation equipment: HP Sprout Pro G2, 10 x HP Probook x360 EE, HP Classroom Manager, HP MR Headset VR1000-100nn, HP 800 Series VR Ready Desktop PC, Dremel® 3D40 for Education.
HP Reinvents Education Globally
At a global level, HP is committed to investing over $20 million in technology, training, R&D and funding contributions to enable better learning outcomes for more than 100 million people between 2015-2025. To achieve this, HP has a range of initiatives to increase accessibility to technology, with the aim of giving pupils a student-centric and experiential learning experience.
Through its portfolio of education edition notebooks, Chromebooks, and virtual reality and 3D scanning technology – including the Z-VR backpack, HP Z Camera, HP3D Structured Light Scanners, Sprout Pro, and HP Mixed Reality Headsets - HP engineers education experiences that amaze. More information about HP’s education technology, including the above devices, can be found here.
About HP
HP Inc. creates technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere. Through our portfolio of printers, PCs, mobile devices, solutions and services, we engineer experiences that amaze. More information about HP Inc. is available at http://www.hp.com.
