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CASE STUDY Head4Knowledge Making learning and teaching computer programming fun decided to enter UMI3's Social Enterprise Competition earlier this year and won a £5,000 prize in the 'Do It' category. He then took a year out from his engineering degree to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions. Third year student Haider Khokhar wanted to be an engineer but, having embarked on an engineering degree at the University, he soon found his inner entrepreneur dying to get out. Today Haider is the driving force behind a unique social enterprise project, called Head4Knowledge, which aims to help children aged 5-14 master the basics of computer programming in a fun, easy and engaging way. We met up with Haider to find out more. "I'm an ideas person and always have been so I decided to go along to one of the Unipreneur events held at UMIC (the University's Innovation Centre) and was utterly inspired by the people I met. I had ideas popping into my head all the time so decided to try and focus on one in particular, an idea which would help teach children about programming. I went along to the Manchester What Next Conference and pitched my idea and was absolutely blown away when I won! 10 "My original plan was to make an mobile phone app to show children how to programme but, once I had done more marketing research, I realised that it would have to be web based, needed to be multilevel, meet the needs of the national curriculum as well as being fun and creative enough to keep a whole class engaged. " Haider knew he had a lot of work to do to develop the idea and, having run things on a shoestring budget, he The funding enabled Haider to develop a prototype programme and mentor Julian Skyrme, Head of Social Responsibility at the University, put him in touch with Chorlton Park Primary School whose head teacher agreed that the children could help to shape the programme. It also allowed him to create a website for the project as well as designing some proper graphics and characters which would be more appealing to young users. Haider continued: "Through UMI3 I have received so much advice and support which has been invaluable. I'm working closely with the School of Computer Science to develop the platform and programme and to ensure it meets the requirements of the national curriculum. The UMI3 team has been so supportive advising me on copyright, IP, costs and expenses, invaluable information about areas in which I had no experience. I'd advise anyone else out there with an idea or two to take the plunge and just do it. There's never a right time and you might have to make a few changes to your existing plans but jump in, listen to advice and start to bring your ideas to life." Haider has continued to develop the project with support and advice from UMI3 and a demonstration programme is due to be available by March 2014 and an industry-ready model will be available by September 2014. www.head4knowledge.org Sample characters