Pupils and staff from Dunoon Grammar’s business and computing department made their voices heard when they were invited to take part in two prestigious, international forums.
The first event took place in San Jose, California, where leading American entrepreneurs met at a week-long ‘Unreasonable Futures’ conference to discuss innovation.
One of the evening sessions, ‘the fireside chat’, saw entrepreneurs gather to discuss the Workplace of the Future. In order to spark debate, the hosts sought the views of young people and, with thousands of schools across the globe to choose from, they approached Dunoon Grammar through Apps for Good.
S3 pupils Annie Liddle, Kameron Smith and Xavier Price were delighted to assist and their views were very well received, with many of the entrepreneurs in attendance sharing their thanks via email and social media.
Xavier said: “It’s amazing to think that my thoughts and views were the focus of such a prominent event held in California. It was surreal that these huge entrepreneurs took the time to send feedback on the value of our opinions.â€
The second global audience that the school was put in front of was to readers of ‘Hello World’ magazine, a respected publication for computing scientists that has a vast circulation across the globe.
The two page spread was written by Principal Teacher Paul Gallanagh and focussed on the department’s pioneering work on machine learning – a new strand of computing science that drives the artificial intelligence used by the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Spotify.
The piece focussed on a new practical course that was delivered by the department this year, in partnership with Apps for Good, which resulted in S3 pupils coding their own machine learning prototypes.
Other contributors to this latest edition of Hello World are from all corners of the world, including Belgium, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and the USA.
Mr Mitchell, Head Teacher at Dunoon Grammar School, said: “This is great recognition for our school to be invited to contribute to both of these esteemed forums. It illustrates the reputation and standing of our business and computing department within the international technology community and I am delighted that the contributions of pupils and staff have been so well received by industry experts.â€
To read the article in Hello World see pages 70-71 of the following: