Three of Bolton School’s year 12 computing pupils have been invited to the final of the national ‘Could IT Be You?’ competition.
The competition was run by Network Rail and is open to girls aged 16 to 18. Entrants Evangeline Wright, Eleanor Bracegirdle and Jessie Sou had to answer ten questions about the company, such as who is the CEO.
“We then had to write a 300 to 500 word essay on how you can use technology to make something happen – either inventing something, or a new way of using technology,” said Evangeline. “I wrote about using biometric fingerprinting instead of tickets, and how that would be better because then you would never lose your ticket.”
Jessie wrote about a train app, while Eleanor wrote about using telecommunications to set up links between schools, potentially globally. Their concepts helped to win each of them a place on the Finalist Day at the National Rail headquarters in Milton Keynes on 19 February. Just 75 finalists were selected from across the UK.
“I was overjoyed when I got the email,” Jessie said. “It meant you were in the top 75 in the whole country.”
Eleanor said: “I was really happy – there are not many computing competitions, so knowing I was selected was really good!”
“It was a long wait. We applied in November and had to wait until January! Now it’s something to look forward to and the Finalist Day should be great,” Evangeline added.
On the Finalist Day, there will be a number of small competitions and five runners up will receive a two-week internship with National Rail, followed by a year of mentoring. The overall winner will also receive £9,000 towards their university tuition fees. All finalists will also receive a certificate.
The three pupils are looking to continue to study computer science in the future. Eleanor and Evangeline both want to study Computer Science at university, with Evangeline hoping to become a programmer and Eleanor looking into the many options that this degree course will open up for her. Jessie will be applying for accounting and computing courses and hopes to combine the two for her career as well.
