MORE than 100 students are taking part in a schools’ fringe event run alongside this year’s Malvern Festival of Innovation.

Which means a pile of electronic goodies will be needed, as each student participating in the “Next Gen Innovators” workshop on Friday will be able to take away a Raspberry Pi starter kit, courtesy of Google and the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

The schools’ fringe event is being held at Malvern College and will allow schools to attend a series of workshops showcasing engineering and aimed at inspiring students to pursue a career in science and technology.

Dr Adrian Burden, technical director at Key IQ Ltd and founder of the Malvern Festival of Innovation, which runs from Thursday to Saturday at Malvern Theatres, said: “This year we wan-ted to introduce a schools element to the festival.

“Through this workshop, we aim to enthuse students about science and engineering and encourage them to consider it as an exciting career choice.

“The supporters of this event and sponsors of the main festival have enabled the workshop to be offered free-of-charge, encouraging all schools to register and come along.

“The workshops have been many times oversubscribed, demonstrating that more of these kind of opportunities could and should be offered to our regional schools.”

For those not attending the schools event, the part of the festival that will be of interest to both students and their families is the family show on Saturday morning.

This is a double-bill with television broadcasters and scientists Dr Jonathan Hare, from the BBC/OU Rough Sci-ence series, and Professor Mark Miodownik (BBC’s Dara O’Briain’s Science Club).

“The show will illustrate how innovation in materials science is impacting how we live and work, and will be an exciting tour of the stuff that makes up the universe around us,” said Dr Burden.

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