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FROM EARLY YEARS TO ENGINEERS
Backed by government, industry, and individuals with a common will to help young people succeed in a digital world, Digital Xtra believes every young person in Scotland – regardless of their gender, race, beliefs, or social background – should have access to inspiring and innovative extracurricular computing and AI initiatives.
What is Digital Xtra...
Digital Xtra is a Scottish charity dedicated to helping young people learn key digital skills through high-quality, exciting, and meaningful extracurricular activities, thus expanding Scotland’s future talent pipeline. The charity achieves this core objective by supporting the start-up and scale-up of initiatives that will engage and excite young people in computing and AI. Initiatives supported by the charity must instil skills such as coding, machine learning, robotics, and games development while also highlighting potential future career opportunities these skills can provide.
By bringing together likeminded organisations and keen partners under a common vision, Digital Xtra is changing how extracurricular computing and AI initiatives are delivered and perceived in Scotland.
Digital Xtra is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO), a legal form unique to Scottish charities, and is administered and regulated by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (‘OSCR’).
“WHILE THE CORE OBJECTIVE IS TO ENABLE YOUNG PEOPLE TO LEARN KEY DIGITAL SKILLS, OUR GOAL IS TO ALSO GIVE THEM MORE CONFIDENCE AND BETTER FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES”
- Kraig Brown, Partnerships & Development Manager, Digital Xtra
A LOOK BACK...
Digital Xtra Fund, as the charity was originally known, was born out of 2014’s ‘Skills Investment Plan for Scotland’s ICT & Digital Technologies Sector’ produced by ScotlandIS, Skills Development Scotland, and the Scottish Government. It was a roadmap to support the growth of Scotland’s digital technologies sector including steps to address the growing digital skills gap. It called for “the establishment of a central coordination and funding resource to increase access to extracurricular computing initiatives for young people”. Digital Xtra Fund was established in 2016 to fulfil this need and in 2017 it officially became a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO).
From 2016 - 2025, Digital Xtra delivered a series of annual grant cycles which saw over £1.1 million awarded to 210 schools and community organisations helping them positively engage over 60,000 young people in technology while also laying the groundwork for ongoing future engagement for thousands more. The Grant Awards programme was an amazing achievement that saw industry, government, and the third sector come together under a common strategy to deliver a 10 impactful grant cycles.
Original logo for Digital Xtra FundA LOOK AHEAD...
In 2025, Digital Xtra Fund became simply Digital Xtra as it undertook a bold new strategy to achieve its charitable aims. Under this new strategy, Code Xtra, the charity will develop a national network of community coding hubs hosted with select delivery partners. Each hub will be equipped with cutting edge Computing Science and AI technology and resources from LEGO Education, and provided with ongoing training and support from Digital Xtra, Raising Robots, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Additional equipment, resources, and training will also be provided by Digital Xtra’s other education and industry partners. In turn, each hub will support the start-up and scale-up of other computing and tech clubs in their local area and school clusters.
Digital Xtra believes this new strategy will create a stronger and more sustainable ecosystem while encouraging collaboration and increased provision of informal tech-based learning for young people and communities.
Updated logo for Digital Xtra
