DCHS students helping Formula 1 teams get to the front of the grid

MSP is supporting local students at the Duchess’s Community High School (DCHS) in their STEM education, with an exciting Industrial Cadet programme.

MSP, a global software company based in Alnwick, Northumberland, who work with leading manufacturers to help fighter jets fly and Formula 1 cars get to the front of the grid, is sponsoring the school through this national initiative organised by EDT; an educational charity that provides STEM enrichment activities to young people in the UK.

The 20-week programme will see six students from the school work with MSP on a project to create an automated support system. This will replace human help-desk support to answer customer problems, using AI (Artificial Intelligence) and predictive analysis to match support enquiries to the most relevant solution or next steps.

Marianne Whitfield, Director of Development, explains: “The team will work with our engineers and software developers to understand the problems we need to solve for our customers, how those problems are solved by our engineers, and how the Cadets can create an automated solution for delivering the answers to our customers problems.

“This will involve using skills in mathematics, coding, research, database analysis, team work and problem solving. We hope the project will be challenging, but fun and give students a real sense of achievement.”

On completion of the programme in June 2022, students will produce a report of their findings in the form of a demo presentation of their solution. James Taylor, who is one of the industrial cadets taking part in the programme and is currently studying A levels at the DCHS, said: “I'm very excited to be part of this project and have been particularly inspired by MSP's work within Formula 1. I'm looking forward to developing my engineering and software skills, gain experience in a real-life business environment and understand the processes to go through when problem solving.”

MSP has supported a number of initiatives at the school over the past few years, and have offered work placements and bursaries to a number of students – some of whom still work at MSP.

Tony Brown, Commercial Director at MSP, said: “We see Industrial Cadets as an exciting opportunity for MSP and DCHS students to work on a long-term project that will both inspire the Cadets and motivate MSP onto even bigger and better things.

“The world is ever-changing and technology is developing at a colossal pace. We recognise that we need to keep up with these changes in order to continue to compete on a global scale. We also recognise the importance of inviting talented people into our business to help us see the bigger picture, or to see things we can’t see.

“After the past 18 months of the pandemic, MSP has faced many challenges. We are looking forward to working with all the Cadets to help us solve one of our key strategic aims – to replace human help-desk support with automated support.”

A monetary sponsorship from Northumberland Estates has also been contributed to the programme. This will assist with costs towards the residential part of the project, that will see students working from a University lab and taking part in team building exercises.

Find out more about the EDT and the Industrial Cadet programme here.