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</The IoC wins six national and international awards for the CTRL Your Future campaign>

Published on 16 November 2020 by web editor

CTRL Your Future, News story

The Institute of Coding’s (IoC) diversity and inclusion campaign has now won a total of six awards for its inspiring content and partnerships that aim to reach a diverse group of people and encourage them to consider careers in tech via higher education. 

The IoC, which is led by the University of Bath, and creative agency Karmarama were recognised with several awards last week in two ceremonies from The Drum. The Drum Awards is a global awards programme which recognises best practice, the best companies and the best people from across the marketing and communications industry.

At The Drum Social Buzz Awards, the CTRL Your Future campaign won the award for Most Innovative Use of Social against big brands like Aldi, Jeep and Just Eat and the award for Best Public Sector Social Media Strategy/Campaign. In addition, the campaign also won The Chair award, which is given to the Chair of the judging panel’s top ranked campaign.

At The Drum Awards Digital Industries (DADI), the campaign won Best Public Sector Campaign and was highly commended for the Best Integrated Marketing Campaign. The campaign also won the Grand Prix award, which is the award for the best overall campaign of the year, beating campaigns designed for brands like Diageo, BT, BMW, Vans, ITV Sport, Porsche, Chipotle and M&S.

On the campaign, one juror said: “This is one of those things that needed to happen 20 years ago! We need more software engineers and more diverse perspectives. Gaming has always been a great springboard into programming and the smart execution does this really well. Love it.”

Read more and watch the online ceremony here.

Last week the campaign was recognised at the PR Week Awards, which celebrate the best creative campaigns in the UK. Winning the award for Best Use of Content, one judge commented that CTRL Your Future was a “smashing use of both audience insight and content. Very smart, engaging and energising.”

Rachid Hourizi, Director of the Institute of Coding says, “The IoC is thrilled with the impact that the CTRL Your Future campaign has had and it’s wonderful that it is being recognised by these national and internal awards. Through our transformation of educational delivery in the UK, we are providing a fresh and disruptive approach to digital learning that focuses on diversity and inclusion. We have worked with some fantastic and truly inspiring partners across the digital sector for this campaign and are eager to continue addressing the barriers that discourage young people from pursuing digital education and careers.”

About CTRL Your Future

The CTRL Your Future campaign launched on Ada Lovelace Day in October 2019. The campaign was based on research from our partners and a nationwide poll that revealed young people’s deeply held perceptions that the digital sector and workforce lacked diversity. For example, 71% of respondents said they believe that the tech industry is made up of people solely identifying as heterosexual, 83% believe it’s led by men, and 70% said it is run entirely by people of white, British ethnicity. Through our research and polling, it was clear that factors were actively discouraging young people from pursuing digital skills education and careers.

In order to address this, the IoC teamed up with some of the digital industry’s most exciting trailblazers to showcase inspiring examples of people shifting the dial on diversity in this field. Our trailblazers are a group of creators and change-makers who are making digital inclusive for all and restarting the system along the way. By showcasing their exciting and creative work and their personal journeys into tech, the campaign aimed to identify and address barriers people may face, showcase accessible role models learning and working in the sector and demonstrate the varied career options that exist in the tech sector. You can read blog posts and stories from our inspirational role models on our website.

As part of this campaign, we’ve rolled out eventspanel talksworkshops and short films – showing the real, accessible opportunities in digital and calling for more people from all backgrounds to get involved via higher education. We’ve reached millions of people and are pleased to see increasing diversity on our online digital skills courses.

If you are inspired to CTRL Your Future and want to take the first step, consider starting a digital skills course with the IoC.


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