Industry Mentors
Industry mentors are a crucial component of the Challenge at the Intermediate and Secondary School levels. They provide advice and guidance to teams of students and help them frame up a solution to their local community or school issue that they have undertaken to solve.
The workload is not high for industry mentors. They meet with the students 2-3 times over a 12-week period, plus provide additional guidance as required.
You do not need to be a software developer to be a mentor, nor do you need specific technical experience. To be an effective mentor for students you simply need to be aware of methodologies used in the IT industry, best practices, and know how to motivate students to undertake research, expand on their ideas and help them to identify
NOTE: Mentors are not available at the Discovery level - these activities are designed to run in the classroom. We are happy to help in any other way however - please don’t hesitate to contact us.
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Mentors meet with students 2-3 times over a term and are generally on hand to answer additional questions where possible. Mentors meet with their teams either at school in person or connect via Zoom, Skype, etc.
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We have hundreds of mentors available throughout NZ and try our best to match based on location or the topic of the student's projects and mentors’ expertise. It does not matter the location as mentors can meet with students via Zoom, Skype, etc.
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Mentors assist teachers by being available to help answer questions that the students may have that Teachers need support with – usually industry-based questions. Mentors act as a sounding board for students - answering questions, suggest other questions or avenues, and offering advice that is appropriate to the students level and compliments the student’s own ideas. Mentors also give real-world experience that can help guide their projects while also engaging them in the real-world experience of working in Digital Technologies.
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Our mentors have agreed to our Vulnerable Children Policy which includes provisions stating that under no circumstances should mentors ever:
Be in contact with any student or team directly, without the teacher being involved (e.g. if there is any email communication, the teacher should be CC’d on everything).
Be left alone with any child. When a mentor is visiting, a teacher or CodeClub coordinator must be physically present at all times
Arrange to meet with students or teams outside the meeting times agreed with and by the teacher (or CodeClub coordinator)
We treat student safety very seriously and ask that you help us strictly enforce these requirements and let 123Tech know immediately if you become aware of any breach of this policy, even if it is minor or appears inconsequential.
“Its been a huge privilege in spending time as part of the ITP community with the future tech leaders of today. From mentoring the young upcoming leaders with their 123Tech challenges through to acting as part of the challenge judging panel, it’s been a lot of fun. We have a bright future in tech with these great minds, and am so excited to see what the future holds for us and them. Well done to all those who entered, bring on next year! ”