AMELIA E (YEAR 12)

Earlier this week some of the Year 10, 11, 12 and 13 Computer Science and Business Studies students attended the Computing and Business Live conferences in Disneyland Paris! We had had one and a half days to spend in the parks. The Computer Science students had the morning to enjoy going on the rides while the Business conference was going on, before we went to the Computer Science conference.

We had three very interesting speakers talk to us about their work relating to Computer Science: Rik Ferguson, Suzie Imber and Lady Marieme Jamme. Rick Ferguson talked about his work as a Cyber Security expert and he explained the types of cyber attacks that currently take place as well as the kinds of cyber attacks that might happen in the future due to developing technology, which was very interesting. I found the work that Suzie Imber has done, using Machine Learning algorithms to help the conservation of Earth particularly interesting as well. Our final speaker was Lady Marieme Jamme who won the Innovation Award for supporting young women through technology. Lady Marieme set up the Iamthecode website to train people to code and improve technological skills in young women.

The Business conference included Tessa Clarke from a company called OLIO which aims to prevent food waste by using an app to share food in local neighbourhoods. We also had an interesting talk from Louis Barnett who explained how to grow business fast and how to use the ‘chocolate box’ methodology to create long term business sustainability. The final speaker was Nzinga Orgill who spoke to us about her work as a globally recognised business leader and how to tackle issues of race and gender in business.

Once the conference was over, we could go back to the parks, to explore the Avengers campus and the Disney castle and go on more rides! The best rides were Hyperspace Mountain, Crush’s Coaster, Avengers Flight Force and Spider Man Web Adventure, although the wait times in the queue could be very long.

While completing our worksheets we thought about the different mechanics of the rides, the wi-fi access around the parks and about websites.

On Monday evening, we stayed to watch the light display and the fireworks at the castle. Unfortunately there were no drones because of the weather but it was an amazing display regardless with fantastic lights and music! It was a great way to end the day.

On Tuesday, we had a few more hours in the parks before we had to start the journey back home.