MOVERS & SHAKERS
the university, Eben and others in Cambridge identified a slow-burning crisis. Silicon Valley was racing ahead of Europe. The decreasing interest in technology in the UK augured a growing skills gap – the ramifications of which stretched far beyond Cambridge’s blushing limestone. Global consulting firm Accenture estimated that the UK stands to lose £141.5 billion of the potential GDP growth that could come from the investment in (and adoption of) intelligent technologies. In Cambridge, decreasing applicant numbers in computer science degrees were a symptom. We were becoming detached from technology’s tactility; our relationship with it slipping from active engagement to one of passive acceptance. Within just a decade or two of Steve Jobs dismantling and reassembling his first rudimentary computer, the magic of tinkering with tech was being lost. “We talk about Raspberry Pi being a hypothesis test, really,” Eben reflects. “We had this hypothesis that, originally, we weren’t getting our people from formal education, but kids who were programming in their bedrooms. When the opportunity to do that went away, so did our applicant stream. We thought that if we could build a machine to house those properties, maybe our applicants would come back. And they did. Applicant numbers exceeded those in the late nineties and were up to approximately 1100 last year.”
Eben does not shy away from the role Raspberry Pi has played in bolstering Cambridge’s position as a tech hub, but he is aware that there are many working within the city to influence its placement as a global tech centre. Asked whether he sees tech ‘hubs’ as short-lived phenomena, he is less sure that any sort of technological innovation can be done just remotely. Instead, central hubs may be key to the growth of satellite contributors. While the engineering design of the Pi is done in Cambridge, the industrial design is outsourced to Bristol, the manufacturing of the plastic components to Dublin and the West Midlands, and the electronics manufactured in South Wales. “It is important that you have clusters and that they can talk to each other. You probably can’t put all of these clusters in one place, and it’s a nice way in which a centralised area for tech can create employment in locations that may be more associated with older industry types,” Eben says. Continuing to build on this tradition of the tactile importance of computer science, Raspberry Pi opened its first retail store in Cambridge’s Grand Arcade early this year. A physical space where visitors can play with the computer, the store has been a long-standing aspiration for many in the foundation. Its purpose is to talk to the people who use the computer and to learn from them directly. For Eben, the
IMAGES The Raspberry Pi store in the Grand Arcade is a physical space where customers can play with the computer. The store is divided into six pods, with each one demonstrating a different use for the Raspberry Pi
past few months have confirmed the shop’s utility. “We’ve been running it for nearly three months now, and we are seeing people come in and decide to have a go – and also those who come in and decide not to, and we have the chance to ask them why. If we didn’t sell a single Raspberry Pi in the store, there would still be a lot of value to us in finding out why,” he explains. The store’s design is segmented into six pods, with each one demonstrating different uses for the Raspberry Pi. In the few months it’s been open, the company has noted how strongly visitors respond to those applications of the platform that produce visible and physical results. This, and the scale of international interest in the computer, demonstrate that people have never, and possibly will never, lose their innate interest in the mechanics of digital tech. It may be up to those building
Noting a marked decrease in student applications for computer science degrees at the university, Eben and others in Cambridge identified a slow-burning crisis"
ISSUE 01 10
cambridgecatalyst.co.uk
Powered by FlippingBook