Inspiring students about the world of digital

The competition allows students nationwide to compete for their school and win some fantastic prizes, but more importantly, it challenges students to think of solutions to real life issues that we see in the digital space today.

It was going to be a very busy morning; after a quick icebreaker and presentation it was time to introduce the briefs to our teams.

Half of our teams would work on a brief for Primark and the other half for Royal Mail, with our Torchbox team helping and mentoring along the way. After research and design phases the teams would then deliver their ideas to our digital experts (Torchbox ‘Dragons’, if you will) who would judge the best concept to progress to the next round.

Primark’s challenge focused on how digital could be used to play a part in improving the experiences, tools and services to educate their customers on sustainability to make fashion kinder to the planet. For Royal Mail, the main focus of the brief was how they could create the ‘Digital Doorstep’ of the future to send and receive parcels in the best possible way and how technology could be used to make Royal Mail feel like a modern, innovative business.

There were some core values the teams were asked to consider when designing their digital products:

• Inclusivity: Will this product be easy to use for people who are comfortable using technology and those that aren’t? Will it help excluded groups such as neurodiverse individuals or people with motor disabilities?
• Practicality: Can the product be easily launched into the business?
• Clarity: How will it work? What does the user experience or journey look like for the customer?
• Creativity: Think outside the box!

After a hard morning of researching and designing by our teams our four Torchbox ‘Dragons’ were presented with four distinct and fantastic ideas:

1. An app feature that would boost the transparency of Primark’s products by scanning the barcodes of clothes to allow the user to see how a particular product was made, who made it, where it came from, and the composition of the product.
2. An app feature that would boost Primark’s awareness of reducing single use clothing by presenting the user with a lookbook for how a particular product could be worn more than once by just scanning the barcode.
3. An initiative to help elderly people access Royal Mail services by introducing a monthly subscription for a tablet that would allow users to access their bank account and book parcel collections.
4. A multifunctional device to be carried by Royal Mail postmen and women that allows them to go door to door and carry services that would otherwise have to be done at the post office, such as purchasing stamps, printing labels and depositing money.

We know first hand how much of a difficult process it can be to design and deliver digital products, and even though only one design of each brief was able to proceed to the next round of BIMA’s Digital Day competition, it was fair to say we were all blown away by the way the teams worked together and the innovative ideas they came up with.

This was an incredibly rewarding experience to be able to share what we at Torchbox love about digital to the students of City Academy Bristol, and who knows, we might have inspired one or two future Torchboxers!