BBC Scotland Presents: Exploring Tech Careers in Media

What to expect:

Are you keen to learn more about the STEM career opportunities available at BBC Scotland? Do you want to widen and strengthen your professional networks? If so then this is the event for you.

Join us at BBC Scotland for a lively panel discussion involving colleagues from the BBC Tech & Product Group and Operations team. We will be hearing how they got started in their career, exploring gender balance in STEM roles and the importance of creating an inclusive workplace. There will also be the opportunity to meet the teams face to face with some speed networking. Including BBC staff representing:

iPlayer, Sounds and Partnerships engineering

BBC Research & Development

BBC News Tech & Innovation Story Team

Archives Technology & Services

Post Production Operations

Who should attend:

This event is open to Further and Higher Education Students, Career Changers and Up-skillers. Due to security rules at the building attendees must be 18 year of age or above and bring ID with them on the day.

About the panel:

The panel will be led by Laura Goodwin who joined the BBC in 2018 as Innovation Correspondent. Since then she has covered a wide range of stories including the development of the covid vaccines, plans for a new space port in Shetland and a gene breakthrough in our understanding of breast and ovarian cancer. There have been some wonderful tech stories too, including the robotic whale built in Scotland for the Spy in the Ocean series, lab grown meat, and how augmented reality is helping parents prepare for cleft palate surgery on their babies. Laura also regularly presents Reporting Scotland and the Nine, and on occasion appears on Click.

Rachel Close is currently a Senior Responsible Data & AI Manager, leading on the implementation of the governance framework for Responsible AI at the BBC. However, her lifelong love of AI started many years ago when her dad handed her books by Isaac Asimov and Neil Stephenson. She moved to Scotland in 2011 partially to study Cognitive Science at the University of Edinburgh and partially to chase the landscapes from Monarch of the Glen. From there, she spent eight years working at EY focusing on Cybersecurity strategy and governance consulting, as well as supporting, and eventually leading, the EY Women’s Network for Central Scotland. She joined the BBC in September, finally able to bring her love of AI and BBC Scotland together with her work in governance and strategy. When not on the clock she can be found walking her dog by the river, obsessively watching and reading sci-fi and fantasy, or choreographing fight scenes for amateur theatre companies.

Chloe Gilmour started her career as a data science apprentice at the BBC back in 2019, opting for an apprenticeship over the traditional university route. This was carried out jointly between the BBC and the University of Edinburgh, allowing her to gain a degree at the same time as gaining experience in the workplace. She graduated in July 2023 with and moved straight into a data scientist position inside her current team at the BBC, Personalisation. In her current role, Chloe works on recommendation systems for BBC News, Sport and World Service, helping to bring personalisation into this space to provide a better experience for users when they are using the products.

Jenn Ruxton “After 3 years at Glasgow Music Studios, I noticed an opening for a traineeship with the BBC I had to apply. I was successful, partly due to the real world experience I had gained from the studio job, and fully expected to end up in radio once I had completed a rotation around different departments. However I was introduced to the Vision department, which I had never heard of before, but realised I had lots of transferrable skills from my audio background. Having never worked in broadcasting, the chance to learn another new skill was very appealing, so I became a vision engineer. Fast forward to now and I have been a Vision Supervisor since 2019 and thriving. ”

Zoe Kleinman is the BBC’s first ever Technology Editor, appointed to the role in 2021. With over 20 years broadcasting experience, Zoe has spent most of her career as a specialist presenter and reporter covering all areas of the tech agenda.

From gadgets and games to cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, she makes tech news accessible to a mainstream audience of millions across national and international BBC Radio, TV and online outlets including Radio 4’s Today programme, BBC World TV and the UK’s most watched news shows.

Zoe has raced drones in the Nevada desert, taken a backseat drive in a driverless car, spent the night in a house full of robots and climbed Mount Everest in Virtual Reality.

She’s reported on Elon Musk’s controversial takeover at Twitter, the volatile world of cryptocurrency, the gender bias in Silicon Valley, Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, and her exclusive reports about the parents whose children accidentally spend thousands of pounds inside video and mobile games was discussed by politicians and led to a parliamentary committee hearing on gaming and gambling.

Zoe’s wider journalistic skills are hugely respected across the BBC and in 2020 Zoe was asked to work as a senior journalist on the BBC News team covering the Covid-19 pandemic.