Great Yarmouth Techathon: A community collaborates for brighter futures
August 21, 2026
Norfolk Libraries’ Techathon award nomination, at the recent Libraries Connected seminar, recognises the special talent libraries bring for inclusive skill-building. Lorensbergs spoke with award nominee, Sarah Brewer, Norfolk Libraries’ Locality Manager, to get a breakdown of what was actually involved in delivering this highly successful event.
What is particularly exciting is the libraries’ success in winning the participation of what can often be a hard-to-reach group. Teenagers featured strongly amongst the throng of young participants, with some returning for further digital challenges. It has developed their skills while putting them in touch with future local employers.
This is what the Great Yarmouth Techathon was able to achieve, plus we look at some tips for organising similar events of your own.
The event brought together more than 100 young people to learn new digital skills and grow their enthusiasm for technology. Its underlying idea was to give young people opportunities to use technology collaboratively and solve problems.
The event demonstrated how digital interests can develop into valuable skills and careers with local recruiting companies. At the same time it encouraged technology use in an appropriate, safe environment.
A techathon event had already been a success in Norwich. The initiative originated with Step Into Tech, a Norfolk-based social enterprise which provides resourcing and helps with organisation. The Great Yarmouth Techathon was staged last October at The Place, the new combined library, adult learning and registration services space which shares a historic town centre building with the local East Coast College.
The two-day format comprised opening presentations, team challenges, supported technical work and a final presentation of what participants had achieved. Local businesses were involved in setting challenges and supporting the event with prizes for best work.
Above: The Place is the new combined library, adult learning and registration space located alongside East Coast College.
While hosting the event in a combined space, leading with the library really mattered. It’s somewhere people of different ages feel they belong, rather than a service associated with one particular need or demographic.
The library’s relationship with a local school led to a number of spaces being paid for to enable pupils to participate. The regular fee was £10 per place, which was unfortunately out of reach for parts of a diverse community.
“Even when something represents good value, that doesn’t mean everyone can afford it,” Sarah explained – a reminder that acting to remove risks of digital exclusion involves removing financial barriers too, ensuring there’s free access to technology.
Above: The Techathon was extremely popular, here pictured during a team challenge; A poster displays what was included at the event, with free places offered via a local school.
Sponsorship, coordination and resourcing sourced through Step into Tech, also enabled the event to be more accommodating and appealing, with lunch included and prizes from local employers.
While the library was the host and public-facing gathering point, East Coast College provided classroom space and a private network better suited to controlling access for the event’s online exercises. As a library partnership with the college and other parties, it enabled the organisers to be more ambitious, with the space and resourcing capacity to deliver an event at greater scale.
Local employers were part of the Techathon’s success, and much more than simply names on a sponsor board. Aviva and Kier Construction were among the organisations supporting the Great Yarmouth event. Industry mentors helped teams tackle real-world challenges and gave young people an opportunity to encounter the people and skills behind different careers.
Kier’s careers-focused presence at the Techathon with its slogan ‘Build your Career at Kier’, helped make the connection between the activities young people were enjoying and the opportunities those skills could eventually open up.
Sarah explained how young people do not always realise how much science, engineering and technology is involved in the companies operating around them. Bringing employers into an informal, creative event like the Techathon enabled them to introduce young people to sectors they might never have considered, with technology skills relevant to local career options.
Aside from the large event being fully subscribed, participant feedback shows that it delivered some great outcomes. In particular, parents reported quieter children coming out of themselves and becoming actively involved with their groups, putting forward their own ideas. Parents also saw that time spent on computers can be constructive, especially when it involves teamwork, creativity and purposeful activity.
Is the Techathon something that Great Yarmouth Library will repeat? With children and parents already asking when it might return, the appetite is certainly there. Its scale means it is more likely to be a special event staged every couple of years, allowing time to bring together the right partners, sponsorship and support.
In the meantime, Norfolk Libraries continues to give young people reasons to return through activities such as its annual DigiFest programme. In fact activities that had previously been difficult to fill have become more popular, with young people actively looking out for similar opportunities.
From coding clubs, robots and stop-motion animation to a local constabulary-run digital escape room, these smaller-scale events help sustain young people’s interest in technology and in the library itself. Seeing the same young people who attended the Techathon return for these activities is strong evidence that a major event can act as a gateway to ongoing engagement.
The Techathon demonstrated how young people can develop confidence, and exercise creativity and collaboration with the library’s support. With the involvement of local partners, it strengthened a sense of belonging and pointed to positive prospects within the local community. Moreover, the event showed how ‘digital inclusion’ extends beyond access to devices and connectivity, making it equally about confidence, creativity, collaboration and pathways into future opportunities.
Most notably, it gave opportunity for the library to engage older children and teenagers, helping to prove the library’s relevance in the time between childhood programmes and later adult and family use. In this light, the library is seen as dynamic and welcoming, both as a space to spend time and as an inclusive organisation.
