The Future is Digital… at BGS!

Year 14 Business Studies students showed their creative potential at the YENI Digital Masterclass in February 2022 at BGS.

The Digital Masterclass  programme is designed to show local business students enterprise opportunities which use new technology. There were a number of examples from the tv and film industry which has been hugely successful in Northern Ireland. Hit TV series such as Game of Thrones and Line of Duty, as well as blockbuster movies such as The Lord of the Rings and Gravity, were used to showcase some of the digital effects created by local companies. Everything from motion capture to virtual and augmented reality were illustrated and celebrated. This expertise is available and being expertly demonstrated, right here in NI.

The masterclass then switched focus from what is currently available to: what can you come up with? The boys had to pick a target market then consider the challenges and problems that group faced. They then had to brainstorm solutions to the problem and sketch out how it would work, how it could be promoted and distributed and even what the user interface would look like in the accompanying app.

We had some great ideas:

• “Robu Rub”, a robotic physiotherapist which was a sunbed-shaped MRI scanner and shiatsu massage pod, mainly targeted at professional football clubs;
• True Football, a VR experience where football fans get to recreate famous football finals from history, with the option of an augmented reality version. In the AR version, the fans actually travel to the stadium and watch the match through AR glasses, with those thousands of supporters creating their own unique atmosphere at the recreated event;
• Traveller Access: a VR experience for disabled would-be tourists, who get to immerse themselves in the experience of a trip to the Giant’s Causeway without having to physically travel there;
• WarSim: a war game simulator for training army cadets for combat (very topical, but possibly reinventing Call of Duty?);

Through the first group work activity that we have carried out for 2 years, the boys seemed to enjoy the experience and showed amazing creativity and teamworking ability to come up with really innovative ideas!

The winning team was Traveller Access, chosen by Young Enterprise’s Rebekah White, on the grounds that she liked how it was inclusive for not only disabled people, but possibly for those who have anxiety problems before they travel to a new place.

Thanks so much to the boys for taking such a positive attitude and for Rebekah from Young Enterprise for staging the event.