We are very proud to reveal that Skills Route has been announced as the winner of the Education Open Data Challenge after 10 weeks in incubation. The team at MIME would like to thank everyone involved in setting up the competition and providing specialist support to help develop the initial concepts behind Skills Route. In this post, we are excited to announce our plans for the coming months. 

The team now plan to rebuild Skills Route for the whole country, with more user consultation, working closely with our group of pilot schools. We want to ensure that Skills Route is as useful as possible to young people, parents and schools. It's important that everyone, no matter what their previous attainment or particular strengths, has a fulfilling pathway ahead of them, whether this is academic, applied or vocational.

Through the process we have received some great feedback on Skills Route including the following snippets from some of the organisers and judges:

"We are opening up Government data to give students real information about where their subject and college choices will lead them. Too often students do not take critical subjects like maths because they do not know the impact on their future salary and career prospects. This tool will show the importance of keeping options open and provide up-to-date data in a fast changing employment market."

Education Minister Elizabeth Truss MP (who was part of the judging panel):

Ed Parkes, Senior Programme Manager for Nesta: “Skills Route is the first of its kind and will no doubt become an important tool in helping to ensure school leavers and their parents make more informed decisions when it comes to furthering their education or career. The website is a perfect example of how widely available, but, often complex information, can be better utilised and applied to every day life.”

Jeni Tennison, Technical Director at the Open Data Institute: “Skills Route is a great example of how open data can be used to offer a new perspective on a common issue. We want to see more startups, like the team behind Skills Route, developing innovative new services and products which benefit UK citizens.”

If you have any questions about the Skills Route project then please don't hesitate to get in touch at skillsroute@mimeconsulting.co.uk. Follow us on Twitter for updates @SkillsRoute