The Talent Foundry is Flywheel IT Services' Charity of the Year 2023. We'll be supporting them with free-of-charge managed IT services including our IT helpdesk, some strategic upgrades and advice on getting the most from their technology.
About the Talent Foundry
The Talent Foundry is an education charity on a mission to increase social mobility. It does this by helping young people in schools in underserved communities to discover and develop their skills, to achieve their full potential in school and work.
The charity has helped 600,000 young people across schools and colleges in the UK by providing inspiring workshops about diverse career opportunities at prestigious companies and organisations that include Barclays, PwC, Dell Technologies, Disney+ and Network Rail.
A word from The Talent Foundry Acting CEO, Jenni Anderson
“We believe that success should be determined by the talents you have, not by the circumstances into which you were born. Since 2009, our mission has not wavered to level the playing field of opportunity and change the landscape for young people from underserved communities. Social mobility is a team effort, and the most successful teams embrace diversity from all backgrounds. We are very grateful to be working with the team at Flywheel IT to help us enable even more talented young people discover what they are amazing at.”
A charity close to our hearts
At Flywheel we’re all very excited to be doing what we can to help this education charity which aligns so well with our own purpose as a company. We love giving children across the UK the resources they need to get the most from their education, and go on to achieve their full potential in a rewarding and stimulating career.
Did you know children from low-income households are 80% more likely to end up on low incomes as adults?
Javid Mahdavi, the Managing Director of Flywheel’s construction IT services subsidiary Nexus Associates, explains why:
“Young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds often lack the opportunities and experiences that their other, more affluent peers get. They can and will have good attainment, but their aspirations can often be capped at those of close family and friends. There can often be no support outside of school for writing ‘personal statements’, university applications or suggesting alternative careers. I am passionate about improving aspirations, social mobility and life chances for our most disadvantaged students and am very excited to be working closely with The Talent Foundry.”
Two organisations with a similar purpose
Having designed the ICT infrastructure for hundreds of Department for Education school building projects during his career – most of them in lower average income areas – Javid is passionate about seeing more opportunities open up for this pool of currently untapped talent.
After participating in a fundraising bike ride across France, it was the brainchild of Flywheel’s CEO Matthew White to do more for The Talent Foundry.
“I’m very fired up about supporting The Talent Foundry and its mission. Every child deserves the same opportunities no matter who their parents are, and The Talent Foundry is clearly doing a great job with that.
Unfortunately, with so many underserved children, it is a huge job they have. There are so many more children that will miss out unless this charity is supported to grow. That is why I’m very happy to offer help to them, so they can keep doing such necessary work.”
How Flywheel is helping
The Flywheel helpdesk engineers will give this great charity its full-time support by troubleshooting any IT problems that occur, installing or upgrading software, and keeping those all-important patches up to date so the charity’s data is properly protected against cybercriminals and malware.
We will also be on hand to answer questions on how to use their tech to best advantage, and any strategic decisions they may need to make on how to get the absolute best out of their resources.
What does the Talent Foundry do?
How to support The Talent Foundry
To find out more, visit The Talent Foundry website.
To make a donation, please go to the charity’s Just Giving page.
If your company is interested in offering work placements or other forms of support to The Talent Foundry, please contact the charity direct.
