Duke of York joins 1000 students at ECS Careers Fair

His Royal Highness Prince Andrew, Duke of York, opened the 2012 Engineering and Technology Careers Fair, organized by ECS-Electronics and Computer Science for the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences at the University of Southampton.

The Duke of York toured the Fair, speaking to many of the companies present, finding out how they work with ECS and other university departments, and learning more about the skills they are seeking from top-level university graduates. He was keen to explore the technologies on display, from the touch screen technology developed by Atmel Technologies to the optical fibre-lasers of SPI Lasers. He was particularly interested in the flight simulation display on the Snowflake Software stand (pictured right). Speaking to Max Toti, Managing Director of Captec, and ECS graduate, Prince Andrew was particularly keen to discuss how universities and businesses together are contributing to the UK’s economic recovery through innovation in engineering and technology.

“It is a great pleasure to join you at the University of Southampton, which is globally renowned and a university of which the United Kingdom is extremely proud,” said His Royal Highness.

“The fact that the Careers Fair has grown to the size it is today – and is actually bursting at the seams – is a sign of how important this University is and how keen businesses are to come here and attract students to work for them.”

The Duke of York then led a roundtable discussion on entrepreneurship and employability with students and graduates joined by University Vice-Chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam, University Chancellor Dame Helen Alexander and Dean of the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences, Dame Professor Wendy Hall. ECS students Don Ndwiweni, Alejandro Saucedo, Adam Malpass and Tom Dell all took part in the discussion.

The visit concluded with a tour of the research facilities in the Mountbatten Building, where the Duke of York was able to learn about the Next Generation Internet Project led by the Optoelectronics Research Centre, and the graphene transistor developed in the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre.

“It’s been a great privilege for us to be able to demonstrate how hard we work to transfer new knowledge and technology into the economy, and for His Royal Highness to meet with some of the employers who are especially interested in the talents of our highly skilled students,” said University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Don Nutbeam.

Well over 1000 students attended the Fair, held in the Garden Court, Highfield Campus. This year was the fifth Fair in the series, which began in 2008 with 22 companies present. Many ECS graduates were on the company stands, illustrating the strong links between ECS and some of the most innovative parts of UK industry. The full list of companies attending the Fair was:

Aardvark Swift, Accenture, ARM, Atmel Technologies, BAE Systems, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BBC Research & Development. Bloomberg, BT Security, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Captec, Centrica, Chamsys, Cisco Systems, Climax Studios, Contact Singapore, Corefiling, Critical Software Technologies, Deloitte, Detica, Dialog Semiconductors, EA Technology, Enterprise Recruitment, Ericsson Television, Estee Lauder, FactSet, FDM, Fidessa, GCHQ, Gloucester Research, Goldman Sachs, Gradcracker, Gresham Computing, HSBC, IBM, Imagination Technologies, JP Morgan, Keeler. KPMG, Logica, MatchTech, MicroFocus, NATS, NDS, Netcraft, NewVoiceMedia, Ocado, OpenMarket, PwC, Qualcomm, Roke Manor Research, Sagentia, Schlumberger, SELEX Galileo, Snowflake Software, SPI Lasers, STI, STR, Switch Concepts, TeachFirst, Telesoft Technologies, Telsis, Texas Instruments, Thales UK, Winton Capital Management, The Year in Industry

For further information about this news story, contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.