Skyscanner to help digital skills take off in Scotland with Digital Xtra Fund
Digital Xtra Fund is proud to announce a new partnership with Skyscanner, the global travel search engine. Skyscanner’s support will increase the number of digital technology initiatives for young people across Scotland; ensuring even more young people have access to digitally creative activities regardless of their gender, background, or where they live.
Digital Xtra Fund is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) which supports extracurricular activities that inspire, enable, and engage young people to be digitally innovative and creative while giving them a better understanding of the future career opportunities digital skills provide.
Digital Xtra Fund was originally established in 2016 and funded through the Digital Scotland Business Excellence Partnership whose partners included both public sector and industry representatives. In March 2017, Digital Xtra Fund became an independent charity to enable it to work with a wider range of partners. In it’s first year as a charity, the Fund supported 11 fun and engaging digital skills initiatives across Scotland ranging from coding clubs in rural areas to designing apps and technology for social good.
Skyscanner was launched in 2003 after CEO Gareth Williams felt there must be an easier way to find cheap flights for his upcoming skiing holiday. The idea of Skyscanner was originally drafted on the back of a beermat, and 15 years later, is now used by 70 million people per month. More than 900 staff are based in 10 offices around the world, including in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
As one of Scotland’s leading technology companies, Skyscanner shares Digital Xtra Fund’s ambitions to inspire more young people with technology and have become the Fund’s first Gigabyte Partner. Support from Skyscanner will be included as part of the Fund’s annual grant awards for high-quality digital skills initiatives in Scotland; and will help demonstrate to young people the breadth of exciting opportunities a future in tech can provide.
Michael Hall, Senior Engineering Manager at Skyscanner said, “Our founder, Gareth, took his first steps towards building Skyscanner at the age of 11, when he started learning assembly language with his dad, creating his own basic computer games. We’re delighted to support Digital Xtra Fund and are really excited to play a part in enabling more young people to discover the world of technology, like Gareth did all those years ago.”
Kraig Brown, Partnerships & Development Manager, Digital Xtra Fund said, “We are very excited to welcome Skyscanner as a Partner of Digital Xtra Fund. Support from one of the most well-known and successful tech companies to ever come out of Scotland speaks volumes about the value of working together to tackle the digital skills gap. As they say, many hands make light work and we look forward to working with the team at Skyscanner to help inspire more young people across Scotland.”
About Skyscanner:
Skyscanner is a leading global travel search site, a place where people are inspired to plan and book direct from millions of travel options at the best prices. They are unbiased and free, which means that the 60 million people who use them every month can trust our comprehensive range of flight, hotel and car hire options. Founded in 2003, they employ over 900 staff, with offices in Barcelona, Beijing, Budapest, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Miami, Shenzhen, Singapore and Sofia. Skyscanner is part of the Ctrip group. https://www.skyscanner.net
Digital Xtra Fund was originally established in 2016 and funded through the Digital Scotland Business Excellence Partnership. In March 2017, Digital Xtra Fund was spun out as an independent charity to enable it to work with a wider range of industry partners, with BT Scotland signing up to support the Fund from the outset. Last year, the Fund awarded grant awards for 11 exciting, high-quality initiatives across Scotland ranging from robotic competitions to designing model Formula 1 cars.
Digital Xtra Fund was originally established in 2016 and funded through the Digital Scotland Business Excellence Partnership whose partners included Scottish Government, Skills Development Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Scottish Funding Council, Education Scotland, ScotlandIS, and industry representatives. In March 2017, Digital Xtra Fund was spun out as an independent charity to enable it to work more closely with industry and address the digital skills gap. In November, the Fund awarded a total of £50,000 to 11 exciting and engaging initiatives across Scotland. Formula 1, 3D printed drones, lighthouses, and coding for social good were just some of the activities to receive support.