Building digital capability
Opencast HQ Hoults Yard

Overview
The digital skills gap is a key challenge and priority right now. If organisations are to build the right products and services, they need the right people and capabilities to be able to deliver.
The session shares ideas and approaches for building capability, as well as practical solutions to accelerate capability in product delivery. We’ll look at the latest agendas and highlight examples of what works, including helping to build a culture for skills development.
Speakers
Robert Craig, Chief Operations Officer, Skills Builder Partnership
Kara Kane, Head of Design, Test, Learn and Grow, Cabinet Office
Sarah McMann, Chief Product Officer, HMRC
Victoria Reilly, Director of People and Organisational Development, Opencast
Cate Kalson, Chief People and Operations Officer, Opencast (moderator).
Opencast is registering guests for its 2025 TechNExt fringe sessions on its own Eventbrite channel via the form below. These bookings won't appear on your personal TechNExt dashboard schedule but you will receive emails from Opencast with details about the event, travel and parking arrangements and reminders before the session.
Speakers

Robert previously worked as Impact Investing Consultant at Social Finance and was Strategy and Operations Consultant at KPMG.

She has been at Opencast since 2021, supporting the organisation’s rapid growth from 120 to nearly 500 on its team. She is an advocate for building deliberately developmental organisations that put skill development at the heart of their purpose. She champions creating supportive, empowering cultures that enable people to grow and develop as people as well as professionals.
She has worked hard to establish an innovative, ambitious people team, to maintain and enhance Opencast’s inclusive culture that harnesses people’s potential. The company earned a place on Newsweek’s Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces in 2022 and 2023.
Cate has sponsored the setup of a social impact team and helped the business achieve B Corp accreditation in 2024. The organisation now focuses more than ever on having a positive societal impact.
Before joining Opencast in 2021, Cate worked for the global management consulting firm, Oliver Wyman, setting up its Newcastle office and building out a data and analytics service, to serve its European client base. Prior to that, she was a life sciences researcher, with a PhD in microbiology. She has worked as a product manager at both Booking.com and Sage.
Cate is a director of industry-led organisation Dynamo North East, on a mission to grow the North East tech economy through collaboration, innovation and skills.

As HMRC’s first Chief Digital Product Officer, Sarah is accountable for more than 600 IT services and products that enable HMRC and Valuation Office Agency to operate – collecting tax and administering targeted financial support. She is also accountable for successful IT delivery across HMRC’s entire transformation portfolio, including major programmes like Single Customer Account and Making Tax Digital.
Sarah is a highly experienced senior leader who has spent 20 years transforming how customers engage with organisations. Her career has spanned utilities, financial services, telecommunications, insurance and the public sector.

She is a designer and community builder whose expertise is in building design culture in large scale organisations.
Kara managed the UK’s user-centred design community and co-founded the International Design in Government community bringing together design-minded public servants from over 70 countries.
Previously, she was the Head of Profession for Design at the Government Digital Service. In 2024, she was named an international ‘Top 35 Government Talent Trailblazer’ by Apolitical.
Registration
Registration
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How to get involved
Please read the information back below, and then fill out an expression of interest form. This will let us know you’d like to take part, what age the participating children are and whether you’d like any support from us or an ‘industry mentor.’
Plan your challenge, consider your resources and the participating students. Challenges can be completed in small or large groups. but please be aware that only 8-10 students from selected schools will be able to attend the celebration event.
Submit your challenge responses via our online form below. Your school can submit up to 10 entries. The deadline for responses is Friday 9 May, 2025. Please get in touch if you are struggling to meet the deadline.
The Schools Challenge steering committee will identify a small group of students from selected schools to be invited to a celebration event on the morning of Friday 20 June at South Shields Customs House.
If selected, you will be invited to attend by 23 May. There will also be an opportunity to display students‘ work as part of a number of public
exhibitions across local authority areas.
If you have any issues, contact us via email: getinvolved@technext.co.uk