Virtual Garden Project at Parklea Branching Out

Things have been busy with our Virtual Garden project at Parklea; three of the young people have been documenting their work around the gardens through videography and blogging.

Virtual Garden is a project in partnership with Parklea Branching Out, a local voluntary organisation who use horticulture and their community garden to provide a variety of support services to adults and young people with additional support needs or mental health problems. Virtual Garden is funded by Children in Need and is helping young people build 'digital portfolios' of their work around the community garden. Through varied sessions that stem from website building to videography, the project gives the young people an opportunity to develop essential skills in technology, team work and creative thinking.

Colin, Ryan and Aidan took part in our website design sessions, and also in camera and video editing workshops throughout January and February. The videos displayed here were filmed and edited entirely by them.

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Colin, Ryan and Aidan will be finishing off their websites / digital portfolios this week, complete with lots of video and photography content accumulated over the last few months. They have become proficient in using Canon cameras, website builders and Adobe Premiere Pro. If you would like to hear more about the project, check back soon for links to their portfolios and individual blogs.

Virtual Garden is delivered every Friday morning at Parklea Branching Out in Port Glasgow.

Leading The Fight Against Online Cyber Attacks

Software Training Scotland (STS) is leading the fight to help protect small businesses from cyber-attacks through additional support from Scottish Enterprise.

STS is a Cyber Essentials practitioner and we have already carried out over twenty Cyber Essentials certifications for local businesses to help protect them from 85% of all cyber attacks.

SME’s in Scotland can apply for the Scottish Enterprise voucher scheme to get financial assistance with achieving their Cyber Essentials certification. The Scottish enterprise provides SME’s with a voucher up to the value of £1000 to reimburse companies for the cost of gaining their Cyber Essentials certification.

Some of the businesses that have taken advantage of the voucher scheme so far include AGM Group in Glasgow, The Balmore Group Scotland, Coffee Conscience, Homefinders, Swordfish Signs, BEP Signs, ARB Growth and Remix Hairdressers in Gourock.  

Roddy MacPhail, Business Development Manager of AGM Group, had this to say about AGM’s experience in becoming accredited:

“Software Training Scotland provided us with all of the advice and support we required to gain Cyber Essentials Certification. 

“I am grateful for their every effort, the way they instantly understood our IT and integrated with our team. They could not have been more helpful or accommodating”

Unfortunately, it is becoming more common for more organisations to be targeted, and seeking help after a cyber-attack decreases the likelihood of a full recovery. Thankfully, Cyber Essentials is a relatively easy certification to obtain for businesses, especially through the Scottish Enterprise Voucher scheme.

Cyber Essentials certification is vital for local businesses; it highlights that an organisation takes cyber security seriously, but more importantly, it protects that organisation with a baseline of security measures that dispel 85% of all cyber attacks.

If this is of interest to you and your business, you can contact us here at STS to take care of your Cyber Essentials needs, and with the Scottish Enterprise Voucher Scheme covering costs, it has never been easier to for your business to confidently stay safe and secure in the digital world.

Any businesses keen to learn more can click here :

https://www.softwaretrainingscotland.co.uk/cyberessentials.

 The Scottish Enterprise Voucher Scheme can be found here :

https://www.scottish-enterprise.com/learning-zone/business-guides/components-folder/business-guides-listing/keep-your-business-cyber-secure/cyber-security-voucher-enquiry

5 Current Projects at Software Software Scotland

It’s been a busy time at STS.

We have launched our new website (with a few design updates still to come!) and as part of our relaunch, we will be utilising this blog to post regular updates on all the projects that we and our Community Interest Company, Access Technology Scotland, are involved in. Here are 5 of the things that we have on the go at the moment:

Website relaunch

After months of being unsatisfied with our website, we took the plunge to give it a complete overhaul. We found the old site was hard to navigate and hard to keep up to date as we had it created by a third party. We now feel much happier with its layout, we have complete control which means we can keep it up to date easily and will always be able to inform our followers of new projects, classes and services we are introducing. Our website still has some tweaks and changes to come in the following months so keep your eyes peeled.

Cyber Essentials

Cyber security is a big issue for small businesses with many not having the budget to implement good cyber security. With the Cyber Essentials scheme, we’ve been helping SME’s achieve better cyber security and helping them get reimbursed through the voucher scheme provided by the Scottish Government.

One of our most interesting Cyber Essential experiences was at Andrew Graham & Sons, a farm up in West Calder. Quite an unusual day out to say the least, with our cyber guy Paul learning more about agriculture and livestock than he could have imagined.

To help improve people cyber security we even have a podcast going over some of our common FAQ’s that you find here :  https://www.breaker.audio/make-your-business-cyber-secure-against-85-percent-of-cyber

And we also have our top 3 tips to get you started with you cyber security here : https://www.breaker.audio/make-your-business-cyber-secure-against-85-percent-of-cyber

Over the next few months we will be working to create even more content and resources to help even more companies improve their cyber security.

Greenock Highlanders

In partnership with Inverclyde Gaelic Learner’s Group and Whinhill Primary.

STS is working in partnership with Inverclyde Gaelic Learners Group to help carry out a project based on the Heritage of the highlanders of Greenock. The project will involve working with volunteers from IGLG and a group of local school children to research and learn about the history of the Gaels, their communities and their language in Inverclyde. So far we have been working with Whinhill Primary pupils, teaching them how to conduct research and turn the research into short films with a Gaelic translation.

Moving forward, the aim will be to continue the research with the children and more lessons on working with various forms of digital media to produce podcasts, music and videos, all of which will be hosted on a website they will work together to produce. There is also the aim to work to produce a short documentary that can be hosted across multiple platforms exploring the heritage of Highlanders of Greenock.

Carers Centre

The Carers Centre Greenock aims to provide a service to help identify and support carers and to recognise their valuable contribution to society. STS have recently been working with the staff, volunteers and board members of the Carers Centre to help upskill them in the use of the Office 365 suite of services. The aim of this collaboration is to increase productivity and filing systems, thus creating a more efficient workflow within the centre. With the workflow being as smooth as possible this will allow staff to spend more time working with users of the centre to provide the best quality of service they can.

Aspire Digital Space

Our Community Interest Company Access Technology Scotland is proud to be working in collaboration with Spire View Housing Association to help them deliver their Aspire Digital Space project in Glasgow. The Aspire project aims to help people with employability, finance and productivity by offering a verity of digital training classes which are free to users.

This project is part of the PowerUp initiative, run by Good Things Foundation with financial support from J.P.Morgan. Power Up aims to drive economic and social inclusion through digital skills, powering up people, provision and places. Projects will take place in four areas of the UK; Bournemouth, East London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and will help organisations to embed digital skills into support for employability, financial inclusion, and small businesses. You can find out more about the funded projects and keep up to date
with all the latest news from the Power Up initiative by visiting -
www.power-up.org.uk.