BT had launched National Inventors Day right from the top of its own London landmark
BT has declared 2 December as National Inventors Day, striking up the display at the top of London’s BT Tower as a way of encouraging more young people to realise their own inventiveness.
Aside from the scrolling names of great British inventors across a London landmark, BT has also published some eye opening survey results about how inventiveness is viewed in British society.
As well as revealing that almost half (44 per cent) of adults believe that the UK has become less inventive over time, it shows the gulf between what the wider public believes makes a designer or engineer.
BT has handily created this timeline of British inventors
Some of the stats from the 2,000 adults and 1,000 12 to 16 year-olds surveyed are odd to say the least, while others confirm that more needs to be done to encourage female designers and engineers:
– Over two-thirds (68 per cent) of adults think that ‘creativity and inventive thinking’ should be part of the national school curriculum
– 43 per cent say that British children today are less inventive than those of previous generations
– 54 per cent of 12 year-olds consider themselves inventive, yet only a 32 per cent of 16 year-olds think the same
– Women and girls are more likely than men and boys to doubt their inventiveness and to have lost the desire to be inventive. Women (69 per cent) are more likely than men (58 per cent) to say they aren’t inventive
– Boys (21 per cent) are more likely than girls (13 per cent) to want to be inventors when they grow up
Thankfully, BT is putting its efforts into helping promote STEM subjects in schools and encouraging British students to be more creative with wide ranging initiatives.
The firm currently delivers a range of school activities using technology like Bee-Bot robots and Raspberry Pi computers to offer practical ways to encourage creative thinking and invention in the classroom.
BT is also lead principal sponsor of the Science Museum’s Information Age Gallery.
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