Glasnevin student to share stage with Hollywood legend

A TEENAGER from Glasnevin who created an app that was developed into a GCSE short course on algorithms has been announced as a panellist at this weekend’s Digital Learning Festival in Dublin Castle.

Catrina Carrigan’s Piano Rock Star app was developed into the algorithm course by CoderDojo, Intel and e-Skills UK and the 17-year-old was asked to be a part of one of the most important elements of the two day EXCITED festival on Friday and Saturday, May 30-31.

The festival features world class leaders in education, technology and enterprise with guests such as mobile phone inventor Marty Cooper and award-winning movie producer, Lord David Puttnam, who is now chair of Atticus Education.

RTE Two Tube presenter, Stephen Byrne will MC at the festival on Friday (May 30) and Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, PhD researcher with the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin will facilitate the event which, as well as panel discussions, will feature breakout sessions for all attendees with the speakers.

Over 200 young people from all over Ireland are expected to attend the festival and many will spend the Friday taking part in an intensive debate facilitated by Accenture Ireland that focuses on key areas of the Digital Strategy for Schools.

The results of the debate sessions will then be fed back into the festival on Saturday and the overall findings will in turn be fed into the National Digital Strategy for Schools.

Other students will work with a team from NDRC and RTE Digital on their pitches for the EXCITED Young EdTech Innovators Award. After a day of fine tuning, guidance and mentoring, they’ll present professional

‘Dragon’s Den’ style pitches to a panel of experts.

The festival will end with

‘Maths in the cloud’ via SKYPE with Sal Khan, founder of The Khan Academy and provider of the most-used library of educational lessons on the web.

Tickets for the festival cost

?¬25 and are available at www.excited.ie.