Challenge will ‘help enable a Silicon Valley in our region’
accounts for 34 per cent of turnover.”
The challenge launched in the Mid Sussex District Council Chamber on Friday, September 30, last year.
The companies that involved include Flowserve,
PSM Marine Engineering, Adelphi, Nuffield Hospital, Bike Smart, Edwards Vacuum, Quantum Technologies and Balfour Beatty.
Each one has provided a STEM ambassador to work with each school and bring them into the workplace to put their STEM learning in context.
The students have also prepared a Marketing and Business Management Plan with help from Nuffield Health.
Lady Emma Barnard, the Lord Lieutenant of West Sussex, is set to award three trophies at the May event – an overall winner, an Engineering Award and the Race Challenge Award.
Mid Sussex MP Mims
Davies will join her, alongside the head teachers, chief executives and Professor Winfried Hensinger, director of the Sussex Centre for Quantum Technologies.
Professor Hensinger said: “Building quantum computers will change the way we work and live.
"But the challenges are severe; we will need the very best scientists and engineers to make it happen.
"We are seeing an exponential growth in the emerging quantum technology sector, yet, far too few people are currently being trained.
“The Mid Sussex STEM challenge helps to fill the skills gap by encouraging our youngest and brightest minds to engage within a fascinating science and engineering project.”
“Something that makes me particularly proud about the STEM challenge is the presence of so many promising female students in the competition, effectively addressing the current gender imbalance in the STEM sector.
"Students who work on the STEM Challenge today may well be building quantum computers in the not so distant future.
"And the region is aiming to become a new Quantum Silicon Valley based on the world leading expertise we have; the STEM challenge helps to enable such a Silicon Valley in our region.”