The judges of school-science competition Bright Spark Awards have spoken of their desire to see it inspire and uncover a much-needed new generation of technical and engineering talent.

Representatives of the judging organisations spoke of the need to find fresh recruits for science-related businesses at the spring launch of the competition last week.

They met at Discovery Park in Sandwich, where they were treated to a tour of the Community Lab, a partnership helping to develop science educators and involving the park, Pfizer and Canterbury Christ Church University.

Entries are now open for the awards, which encourage teams of pupils to use cross-curricular skills in science, technical, engineering and maths (Stem) subjects in practical projects.

Shortlisted teams will present their projects to the judges at a Dragons’ Den-style awards ceremony in July.

Discovery Park’s Kimberley Anderson praised the “special” awards for their ability to inspire young people with a passion for Stem, and said: “I think for the dragons who are judging the event, it’s really special too, to see what the next generation are actually doing.”

Ian Hoare of BAE Systems spoke of his pride about his company’s support for the awards, adding: “We see Bright Spark as a great opportunity to meet new people and potentially have them join us on our apprentice schemes or through some of the graduate placements or summer schemes we do.”

And Gary Smith of Global Associates said: “We recognise and we see that there’s a skills gap in the future of engineering, and we want students to unlock any potential that they may have that maybe they didn’t even realise they had.”

The other judging organisations for the awards are Kent Renewable Energy, Atkins Global, Megger, Pfizer, The ITL Group, EduKit, Highways England and Golding Vision.

The awards are organised by the KM Charity Team and open to primary and secondary schools across the south-east. There are three categories: innovation, investigation and invention.

The deadline for submitting entries is May 31. Find out more at Kmcharityteam.co.uk/brightspark.

Alternatively, contact event coordinator Hannah Hawksworth at hhawksworth@thekmgroup.co.uk or on 0844 264 0291.

And watch a video about the launch event here: