London Gatwick inspires next generation at TeenTech Festival
- London Gatwick colleagues from Engineering and IT hosted activities and mentoring sessions to help students explore careers in STEM
- A total of 300 year 10 students from 30 schools attended the festival following a virtual event on security with more than 1,000 young people joining
London Gatwick joined leading employers, including Amazon Web Services and Arup, at the AMEX Stadium for the TeenTech Sussex Festival (27 November), an interactive, hands-on event to inspire young people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).
Now in its third year as lead regional sponsor, London Gatwick played a key role with engineers and IT specialists form the airport acting as TeenTech Ambassadors, guiding students through the day and sharing advice for a successful career in STEM.
The London Gatwick team held interactive sessions to engage students and answer questions on careers in STEM and specifically working at the airport. They ran a LEGO robotic coding challenge and a solar electric vehicle workshop, as well as giving feedback on student projects, helping teams refine their ideas for the TeenTech Awards next summer.
The event followed a virtual innovation session, attended by more than 1,000 students, where London Gatwick showcased the work behind its next generation security project, implementing cutting-edge technologies to strengthen safety and enhance convenience for passengers.
STEM is vital at London Gatwick with hundreds of career options available at the airport and the many partners who work together to keep the airport running.
Alison Addy, Head of External Engagement and Policy, London Gatwick said: “TeenTech is a fantastic way to spark curiosity and show young people the exciting opportunities available in STEM. We’re proud to play our part in inspiring the next generation and helping local students see how their skills can and will shape the future of industries like aviation and beyond.”
The festival supports London Gatwick’s sustainability strategy, Decade of Change, under its Local Communities objective to inspire and engage the next generation. This year, the airport celebrated welcoming its 5,000th visitor to its dedicated STEM Centre and, to date, has delivered more than 10,000 STEM-specific engagements and 150,000 Careers Live session views, contributing to more than 600,000 student interactions since 2021.
London Gatwick is committed to reaching one 1m student engagements by 2030, helping to equip young people with the skills and confidence to pursue careers in aviation and beyond.
Organisations that support the TeenTech Sussex Festival:
London Gatwick
Arup
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
Commvault
West Sussex, Brighton and Hove Careers Hub in partnership with the Careers & Enterprise Company
With 43m annual passengers, London Gatwick is the UK’s second largest and one of Europe’s top ten airports. It is a vital piece of national infrastructure that drives both the national and regional economies by generating £5.5bn GVA and supporting over 76,000 jobs (2023). Almost 60 airlines fly from the airport to over 150 short-haul and more than 50 long-haul destinations. With a declared capacity of 55 movements an hour, London Gatwick is the most efficient single runway airport in the world.
The airport is located 28 miles south of the UK capital and is extremely well-connected, with more than a quarter of England’s population (15m people) – including all of London – less than one hour away by road or rail. A six-year, £2bn sustainable growth programme includes an ambitious plan to be a net zero airport by 2030 and to increase capacity by bringing the airport’s existing Northern Runway into routine use, alongside its Main Runway. VINCI Airports owns a 50.01% stake in the airport, with Global Infrastructure Partners managing the remaining 49.99%.
VINCI Airports, as the leading private airport operator in the world, manages the development and operation of more than 70 airports located in 14 countries. VINCI Airports draws on its expertise as a comprehensive integrator to develop, finance, build and operate airports, leveraging its investment capability and know-how to optimise operational performance and modernise infrastructure while bringing about their environmental transition. In 2016, VINCI Airports became the first airport operator to commit to an international environmental strategy, setting itself the aim of reaching zero net emissions (scope 1 and 2) across the network by 2050 while supporting the territories’ local climate transition.
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Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a part of BlackRock, is a leading infrastructure investor that specialises in investing in, owning and operating some of the largest and most complex assets across the energy, transport, digital infrastructure and water and waste management sectors. With energy pragmatism central to our investment thesis, we are well positioned to support the global energy transition.
GIP’s scaled platform has over $170bn in assets under management. We believe that our focus on real infrastructure assets, combined with our deep proprietary origination network and comprehensive operational expertise, enables us to be responsible stewards of our clients’ capital and to create positive economic impact for communities. For more information, visit www.global-infra.com.
