Connecting Digital Skills to Real-World Climate Challenges

DigitALL

Digit makes coding physical, creative and purposeful for children in underrepresented communities, connecting digital skills to real-world climate challenges. Students build energy monitors, flood sensors and wildlife trackers, gaining the confidence and skills to see themselves in tech and environmental careers.

In the last twelve months, we nearly doubled our lifetime reach to surpass 1 million young people and trained 23,000+ educators in 59 countries. We did this with no office, 8 part-time staff, and an annual income of ~£335,000.

Our size is our advantage. We make decisions in a WhatsApp message and respond to what teachers need within hours. When teachers told us AI was their top concern, we created PlayLab AI from concept to national delivery in under three months, training 879 teachers to build their own curriculum-aligned AI tools. When DSIT needed a national delivery partner for EcoCode, we scaled from a regional pilot to England-wide delivery without adding a single staff member.

Across our programmes, student confidence and interest in coding and tech careers rose by approximately 70%. EcoCode’s DSIT phase exceeded every government target by more than double, and 9 in 10 teachers said they would deliver our programmes again.

We’ve won four national awards this year, secured government funding from DSIT, and been appointed UK lead for EU Code Week. Our pedagogy has been adopted into national teacher training networks. Our cost-per-learner is among the sector’s lowest. Digit shows that big achievement comes from agility, conviction and the right model.