FIRST Tech Challenge UK - Our People page - Header image
FIRST Tech Challenge UK - Our People page - Header image

Our people

We’re More Than Robots – we’re a global movement of educators, industry pioneers and influencers.

There’s power in community

FIRST UK is only as impactful as the smart creatives driving it. Our small but mighty HQ team is supported by a network of champion orgs, trustees and advisors on a mission to make STEM more inclusive and less intimidating.

“We need to empower young people today to take on the challenges of tomorrow – to prepare them for jobs which haven’t been invented yet.”

Vikrant Bhargava, Founding Chair of Trustees

Vicky

The Assembler

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Vicky assembles our team with her passion and skills of adding insight and structure to ensure we are working effectively, and building quality programmes for our community. When she's not working, you can usually find her in the Peaks with her rescue Whippet Winnie, eating her way around Manchester or cooking up a feast with goodies she’s picked from her garden.

Mi

The Orchestrator

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Mi joined the charity in the summer of 2023 on an events internship. She quickly demonstrated her commitment to ensuring we're More Than Events and was soon promoted to Events & Operations Officer – tasked with making internal processes more efficient and delivering seamless events with the team. If you order something from our online shop, she’ll also be the one packaging up your order! Outside of work, she's a dynamic volleyball player and an adventurous backpacker, always seeking new challenges.

Paige

The Nurturer

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Paige has a passion for STEM that would surprise her school teachers, but one that she puts to best use in her role as Programme Manager. She has taken on the stewardship of our “Middle England” region and can’t wait to get to know the teams in the East, Yorkshire & Humber, West and East Midlands, and the North West. At our events, you will find Paige, clipboard in hand, making sure everything runs smoothly, and in her free time, you’ll usually find her cooking up a family feast!

Kayla

The Facilitator

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Kayla thrives on helping others achieve greatness! She spends much of her time coordinating the charity's interactions within the South East and South West hubs, supporting schools, teachers and teams – the people we're here to serve. From engaging and onboarding new organisations to supporting existing ones, Kayla ensures their journey to impact is a positive one. When she’s not working, you can find her playing board games and watching scary movies.

Toni

The Architect

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Toni is on a mission to grow and energise the FIRST Tech Challenge UK hub network across Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and North East England. By working closely with Champion Organisations, she ensures that each hub thrives, supporting teams, coordinating events and providing essential STEM opportunities to young people. Toni has 15 years of experience in STEM education, five of which saw her responsible for the delivery of the FIRST Lego League programme in Trinidad and Tobago. When she's not busy connecting the dots, Toni enjoys scenic walks and hikes with her family, exploring the stunning Scottish landscapes.

Vicki

The Curator

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Affectionately known as Vicki 2.0 in the team, but by no means taking second place, Vicki brings her knowledge of what good content looks like to help us communicate the #MoreThanRobots story. She's responsible for ensuring we hero our community, amplify our voice and generally smash out stuff people want to digest. Working closely with our stellar Youth Ambassadors, she makes sure our content reflects the incredible work of our community and helps them achieve their most ambitious goals. When she’s not busy creating content, she’s probably off travelling the world.

Ed

The Disruptor

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Ed describes the mission as "making the charity go out of business" – a world where every young person is equipped with the technical knowledge and life skills to own their future. He’s focused on defining the pathway to impact and securing the sustainable investment and critical friendships to get there fast. Previously, Ed led innovation at Cancer Research UK and has brought three startups successfully to market since COVID-19. When he's not building More Than Robots, he can be found globetrotting, in or on the water with Zeb, Oz and Katherine.

Patrice

The Storyteller

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Patrice’s loves making sure we’re doing everything in our power to maximise our impact and work with phenomenal people to advance our mission. Working on our strategy and measuring our impact, she's obsessed with learning from our network and feeding knowledge back into the charity as we continue to evolve how we serve young people. When she’s not harping on about EDI, sharing inspiring insights, or speaking at events, you’ll find her hiking, mountain biking or pretending she knows how to ski with her adventure-loving family.

Trustees & Advisors

Propelling us forward, enacting our strategy and maximsing impact – our Board help us achieve more, better and sooner.

Simon

The Prof

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Toby

The Educator

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Suzy

The Alchemist

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Muktar

The Product Guy

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Vikrant

The Founder

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“As a Senior Leader, it’s important to engage with other schools locally. By working together and networking our D&T and computing departments, we’re strengthening provision across all our schools, helping students get more out of their experience and engaging students in STEM beyond our own school.

“Being a Champion Organisation offers opportunities to link to industry, which helps support the school towards reaching Gatsby benchmarks. The role helps us show our wider community that we’re more than just about exams and in our own context, we’re getting much higher engagement of girls picking tech and computing beyond Key Stage 3.”

Toby Osborne, Assistant Headteacher and Curriculum Lead, Bournemouth School for Girls

Toby

SouthWest Champion

More Than Robots

We’re building the talent pipeline which will change the world.

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  • We build More Than Robots

    We use robots, role models and competitions to make STEM more approachable and inclusive, empowering young people to make informed choices about their future.