The Digital Edge
The third call is now open
The Digital Edge is a £2 million investment programme to fund new ideas for using digital technology to improve young people’s economic and social participation.
Digital technology offers us the opportunity to engage young people in new, more meaningful and relevant ways and enable their participation in building a more resilient society. Yet we need to focus on approaches that take advantage of digital technology to create the greatest value to young people and our wider communities. We need to develop young people’s talents and opportunities and equip them with the confidence, skills and motivation to address the social challenges that they and future generations face.
Download the call for applications.
The key challenges facing young people
As part of this programme, we have identified four key areas where we believe young people face the greatest challenge and digital technology can be used to greatest effect.
- Digging deeper into the problems and addressing the root causes
- Exploring the changing landscape and the nature of engagement
- Renegotiating professional practice
- New forms of employment and reward
We encourage you to download the full call for applications and explore each area in more detail, along with the questions we want to address before submitting an application.
These are not simple challenges to address and as such, we will continue to work with partner organisations, young people and undertake research and evaluation to further refine these challenges.
What we’re looking for in an application
Through this programme, we’re specifically looking for ideas and projects that demonstrate an ambition to create substantial social value for young people and the communities in which they live.
As such, we place high value on applications that:
- can present strong arguments for how they respond to the specific areas set out in this call
- have been co-designed with young people and the ‘users’ of any digital product or service
- will be delivered by teams that include young people as key workers
- have an identified path to sustainability, scalability or growth.
The second call for applications is now open, so if you have an idea for a project that uses digital technology to address one of the four key areas we have identified then get in touch. For more information, download the call for applications document.
We’re looking to invest in partners and ideas that address the challenges we have identified and we look forward to working with you to do so.
