PA Consulting (PA) has announced the Awards Day date and venue for its nationwide Raspberry Pi competition for students aged 8-18. The competition aims to get young people excited about technology by challenging them to create an innovation using a Raspberry Pi computer to solve a real-world problem. This year’s theme is to “improve health and well-being, at home, office, school or on the move”.

“Our Raspberry Pi competition is a fantastic opportunity for budding technologists across the UK to showcase their imagination and coding skills. Promoting STEM education is important to our purpose; this competition offers students the platform to put their ingenuity to the test, ignite their creative spark and use technology in innovative ways to find a solution to this global challenge,” said Jiten Kachhela, Global Head of Digital & Data, PA Consulting.

The 2024 competition will culminate at a live final and awards day on Wednesday 1^st May 2024 at Google, Pancras Square, London. As well as Google Cloud’s support as a partner, Rentokil Initial and Anglia Ruskin University return for another year as partners of the competition.

The contest, which is now in its 12^th year, is open to all students in UK schools and colleges. Participants may enter individually or in teams and will be judged in four age categories based on their academic years for a chance to win £1000 for their school or college. Submissions will be judged on creativity, technical achievement, and benefit to society by a panel of industry experts from organisations including Rentokil Initial, Google Cloud, Anglia Ruskin University, NHS England, and the Department of Health and Social Care.

To support the teachers and teams during the competition, PA has put in place a comprehensive set of free resources, which include:

• Webinars for teachers full of hints and tips to guide their teams, presented by PA’s experts and partners who have supported previous competitions
• Dedicated and interactive kick-off support sessions available for the teams with tech experts from PA’s partner organisations
• Raspberry Pi computers for the first one hundred teams to enter the competition.

Last year’s competition asked teams to innovate to accelerate energy transition. Winning entries included solar panels to generate heat to save water and energy; a device which uses temperature and humidity sensors to alert users if any appliances are switched on; and a device to remind people to turn off lights in school during break times.

Details of the 2023/24 competition can be found at www.paconsulting.com/culture/pa-in-the-community/raspberry-pi-competition-uk

[Image: Kenny Eliason for Unsplash]