Case studies

The brief

Big Creative Academy wanted to close a real gap: many of its 15–24-year-olds face significant barriers into the creative industries. This is a cohort among the least engaged with mainstream education — GCSE grades in the lowest 7% nationally — with 20% having special educational needs, a disability or neurodivergence, 19% facing safeguarding-related challenges, and around 40% from ethnic-minority backgrounds. Foundation for Future London funded Life Bytes, a pilot to build the digital, creative and "fusion" skills that link this talent to real careers.

What we did

Dave led the project as Creative Technologist and Project Lead, designing and steering it with the college; Francesca supported on strategy, partnerships and project development. Across four strands we ran research, co-design and teacher CPD; a series of 17 workshops in person and online; a three-week video-creation challenge judged by an industry panel; and two creative hackathons, where students got hands-on with code and technology to solve a real creative or societal problem. Assistant-facilitator roles went to creative-tech university students, and an online toolkit was created to share with East London secondary schools.

Built for equity and inclusion

The project was designed "with, not to" the young people, by a team with lived and learned experience of the barriers they face. Inclusion was practical: digital access as well as digital skills, safeguarding-led delivery, and a familiar, safe environment — so a cohort who often don't engage could take part and thrive.

What changed

Life Bytes reached 430 young people directly, with a wider reach of 1,350, across 17 sessions, 11 schools and 12 partners. Beyond the hard skills, young people built confidence, collaboration and career awareness — the sense that "this is for me" — and staff reported a shift in progression, with more students staying in the creative arts and pursuing creative careers.

The brief

As part of #PunkLondon — a citywide celebration of 40 years of punk, backed by the BFI, the British Library, the Roundhouse and the Museum of London — we worked with 90 young people from Lambeth secondary schools for a week at BFI Southbank, fusing dance, music, puppetry, poetry and visual arts.

What we did

Dave led the hacking, making and music strand, drawing a parallel between punk's DIY spirit and today's maker culture. Young people built their own instruments — capacitive-touch interfaces using Makey Makeys and Touch Boards, and reprogrammed Wiimote guitars — then used that hacked technology to score a live performance. The week culminated in a promenade carnival and band performance, with young people voicing their own take on punk, ska and reggae.

What changed

Over a single week the change in the young people was striking: many arrived shy and self-conscious and, by the final performance, were performing at their peak — a vivid example of how creative technology and the arts can build wellbeing and self-belief.

The brief

Arts Award invited us to design workshops for the Digital Arts and Culture space at Mozfest; we proposed two, and both were selected. Robotticelli set out to demystify code and creativity in the same breath — showing that programming and art are two sides of the same imaginative act.

What we did

Participants started "unplugged", pairing up as coders and artists to write drawing algorithms for each other to perform by hand, then swapping roles. From there they programmed real robots to make art — driving a Raspberry Pi robot across a shared canvas, and uploading algorithms to a Lego EV3 robot running the Scratch-like Open Roberta platform. Part R&D, part creative-coding, part hands-on art.

What changed

Participants left having grasped — through their hands rather than a lecture — how simple rules can generate complex, surprising results, and how approachable creative technology can be. Many were struck by how much they engaged with the robots; one said they "felt sad when it came time to power it down."