‘The Great Brighton App Off’ comes to Brighton MET College 

Earlier this month app developer DabApps hosted The Great Brighton App Off at Brighton Met College, giving students a Dragons Den style mission. 

Computing, Digital Technologies and IT Students were given a week to design and create a business idea for an app, challenging their teamwork, entrepreneurial and organisational skills. 

Students were given a week to come up with a pitch, and given a theoretical budget of £100,000 to turn their ideas into reality. 

These ideas were then pitched to a panel of experts in the field. These experts included Sam Spencer, Head of Strategy & Operations at Lima Delta, Meg Sayers, Creative Director at Make Good Design and Fiona MacNeill, Learning Consultant & UX Designer.  

Catrina Baker-Bassett, the Managing Director of DabApps, explained:  “The purpose of the event is for the students to understand all of the different thought processes and roles and responsibilities that go into coming up with an idea for a software product.  

“I hope it showed the students that there are loads of opportunities in terms of the type of roles that you can do in the industry, there are so many types of specialisms, and in most teams, you need people that are skilled in most areas.  

“Hopefully they’ve found it useful and given them an insight into some different companies within Brighton, and also allowed them to learn from each other, and to listen to each other’s experiences and ideas, and focus on building good teamwork and communication”.  

There were two winning teams, ‘CodeCrafters’ and ‘The Spice Girls’, and each team received Nandos vouchers as a prize for their hard work and dedication to the project. 

Eric, one of the students who took part, said: “The competition was fun, it was similar to last year, it was a fun activity to do.  

“One thing I learnt was the importance of marketing, it is crucial, from the start we had to think about the target audience, the amount of budget we needed to operate, how we would be competitive compared to other brands”. 

Karena Morrison, Teaching & Learning Manager at Brighton MET, said: 

“A big thank you to Catrina, DabApps, and the panel for helping organise this brilliant workshop and event. 

“Our students found this workshop very useful, and it has helped them get a flavour of what it is like working in the real world”. 

For more information on our Games, computing and IT courses at Brighton Met College click here.