Maggie Philbin

What do your children want to be when they grow up? A new report  ”The Shape of Jobs to Come” by Fast Future Research and commissioned by the Science : (So what? So Everything) campaign takes a look at the jobs they might be doing in 2030 , jobs which don’t yet exist.

It’s very detailed but one of the engaging conclusions is a long list of 110 “new ” professions. They’ve focussed on 20 of these, providing a projected “Day In the Life” for future careers ranging from “Nano-medic” to “Virtual Clutter Organiser”.

What about Vertical Farming? More about this at http://www.chrisjacobs.com/?cat=3

The real purpose is to encourage children to see that there are many more opportunities in science and technology than they might have realised.  And that if you really want to make a difference to  a world challenged by climate change, population growth and an ageing demographic, then carrying on with maths and physics is a good idea.

Here’s the list:

1. Body Part Maker

2. Nano-Medic

3. Pharmer of Genetically Engineered Crops and Livestock

4. Old Age Wellness Manager / Consultant Specialists

5. Memory Augmentation Surgeon

6. New Science Ethicist

7. Space Pilots, Architects and Tour Guides

8. Vertical Farmers

9. Climate Change Reversal Specialist

10. Quarantine Enforcer

11. Weather Modification Police

12. Virtual Lawyer

13. Avatar Manager / Devotees - Virtual Teachers

14. Alternative Vehicle Developers

15. Narrowcasters

16. Waste Data Handler

17. Virtual Clutter Organizer

18. Time Broker / Time Bank Trader

19. Social ‘Networking’ Worker

20. Personal Branders

On BBC Click this weekend you’ll see a few glimpses of the BBC’s R&D centre at Kingswood Warren.

If you’re a serious geek you may have heard of it but chances are you haven’t. Most people who work at the BBC are unaware of their work and only the tiniest proportion have ever bothered to go and visit.

Yet it’s one of the most fascinating and significant places in broadcasting. For the past 60 years they’ve been creating and testing key technology used in  studios and sitting rooms- from HDTV to Digital Radio, from everyday radio mics to the ambitious technologies of 3DTV we’ll enjoy in the future.

Early radio camera- Kingswood Archive

Kingswood Warren - Fieldstore Standards Converter

• They list their top ten successes as
  • FM Radio and RDS
  • The first switch-over, 405-line black & white TV to 625-line colour
  • Analogue TV Standards Conversion
  • Teletext
  • Digital Television
  • High-definition TV
  • DAB Radio
  • Online bbc.co.uk and beyond
  • Production Magic virtual graphics (SMART, Match of the Day, Bamzooki)
  • DVB-T2 enabling HD on Freeview in winter 2009

Walking down the panelled corridors of the neo- Gothic house, through to brick built labs, you find iconic pieces of televison history stashed in corners. Graham Thomas pointed out the enormous set used for early experiments for HDTV, which Kingswood were working on 26 years ago. He said it took 6 men with poles to lift , which is presumably why it still sits proudly in a corner, watching its flat screen progeny.

Graham Thomas and the HDTV

One of the most curious places is the anechoic chamber, a sealed room built in the sixties lined with a metre of soundproofing foam and used for audio experiments. A live mic dangles from the ceiling as a safety measure. No sound gets in or out of this place, so if you were ever accidentally shut in, no-one would hear you scream. You can’t help but think this must have happened.

Kingswood Warren Archive. Not sure what they're testing but would like to think it's the first shower radio.

My producer LJ Rich in the Anechoic Chamber

We were filming so there wasn’t time to stop and quietly record the sound for you. But here’s flautist John Hackett demonstrating the acoustics  in there

You time travel around the site. Back to childhood,as you walk past the studio where they filmed Bill and Ben, forward to 2012 and the plans for  live graphics illustrating the muscle power of athletes and the velocity of their throws.You squeeze past test cards from the seventies and pattened sofas to watch a stunning demonstration of 3DTV on a 40in screen without glasses.

The entrance hall at Kingswood Warren - high tech and chandeliers

Test card for flesh tones

Kingwood Warren - Radio Project

Kingswood Warren - Piero

It’s well worth taking a look at the wealth of their projects on their website.

They have learnt to be patient and incredibly philosopical about their work . Andy Bowers , who now heads up the Research Department, says that when he joined 26 years ago as a trainee, one of the first projects he worked on was HDTV, deciding on the number of lines and the size of the screen. But it’s been a worthwhile wait.

Other technology is ready but waits quietly for the right moment. Surround video – where the images are shot on both a fish eye and conventional HD camera may be used to bring the 2012 Olympics to city centres, giving people the sense of being right in the stadium. Or it may bring you the ultimate game world. Or it may never see the commercial light of day.

Surround video in one of Kingswood's "sitting rooms"

In a matter of weeks the department will leave the tranquil  atmosphere of Kingswood  for White City, where their ground breaking work will continue. It seems a suitable moment to say thank you to these self-effacing engineers, with superb minds, who have delivered such important projects. You might like to send them a Christmas card.

We should do more to promote the work of teams like these, to inspire the next generation to share the challenges of creating the broadcasting technologies of 2050. They couldn’t be in better company.

I met some great teenagers this week, when I was taken on a tour of a “decant school” in Birmingham. I’ve never heard the term before but , as you’d imagine , it means moving an entire school into temporary accomodation.

When I was 13 , the back of my school was torn down and I remember the misery and disruption caused by moving into huts on the netball courts for twelve months . I didn’t mind missing netball but hated the cramped, cold classrooms and though it never crossed my mind at the time, it must have been really stressful for those taking exams.

In Birmingham the temporary school for 800 students was assembled in just 12 weeks.

Their old school is screened off by hoardings but these have been painted with a striking mural, featuring many of the children themselves.

They believe it’s the biggest in Europe. And the grey drizzle was no deterrent to showing it off to me.

Although your first impression is a huge wall of  grey boxes, piled on top of each other, inside it’s a different story. The temporary building is already giving staff and students a taste of how their new school will work.

The temporary school was assembled in just 12 weeks

The students were enthusiastic about the  new technology, the bright white science labs and the sheer amount of space ; each year group has it’s own flexible common area . They said they felt motivated by the sense of investment. Results  seem to back this up. The Head said normally you’d expect  exam results to  dip but they’ve already seen a 20% overall increase in grades and 6% increase in A-C grades including English and Maths.

And this is just one school . Over the next 15 years, every secondary school in the city will be rebuilt or refurbished. The plans are ambitious – schools will become the hub of communities, companies involved in the building works will be a rich source of jobs and work experience placements and the hope is that entire communities will be regenerated.

I’ve just had a fantastic experience visiting a family engineering firm. Blatchfords make artificial limbs and they’ve been going for over 119 years. They’ve just won Product of the Year in the Engineering Awards  for  their latest hydraulic foot which the judges said  was closer than anyone has ever gone before to being able to replicate the human joint.

The firm were extraordinary and clearly inspire loyalty – not only are there many long term memebers of staff but customers volunteer themselves for trials so they can try out the very latest technology. Kelvin, who lost his leg in a motorcycle accident 7 years ago is one of those happy customers – and showed me how tiny adjustments make all the difference.

He arrived on a motorbike and was off to compete in a competition at the weekend, so his accident hasn’t got in the way of his passion for bikes.