Apply for a grant award from Digital Xtra!

Digital Xtra's Grant Awards

Since its inception in 2016, Digital Xtra has awarded £985,000 to 163 high-quality, exciting extracurricular computing and digital technologies initiatives across Scotland. This funding has helped positively engage over 52,000 young people in tech. This year, the charity awarded 26 grants to schools and organisations who are projected to engage another 2,500 young people, including 1,360 girls and young women, throughout the 2023/24 academic year.

Applications for Digital Xtra’s ninth grants cycle, which will support initiatives during the 2024/25 academic year, are now CLOSED. Thank you to everyone who applied. Grants up to £5,000 will soon be awarded to schools and community organisations looking to start up or scale up extracurricular tech activities for young people. Activities must teach children and young people skills and concepts such as coding, robotics, games design, data science and cyber to help inspire Scotland’s next generation of digital makers, leaders, and technologists.

What we want to achieve

The core objective of Digital Xtra is to inspire young people to learn digital technologies skills through high quality, exciting extracurricular activities, thus expanding the talent pipeline. All supported initiatives must meet this objective as well as any number of the charity’s secondary objectives.

Applications are sought for initiatives which demonstrate meaningful and stimulating ways of engaging young people in digital tech. Applicants must clearly explain how participants will learn about and innovate with technology, not simply use it, and what digital and meta-skills they will gain. Digital Xtra also believes in an inclusive approach to enrich the learning experiences for all those involved and help build a more diverse and vibrant tech industry. As such, Digital Xtra is especially keen to support projects which appeal to:

audiences from areas often excluded from digital tech activities through lack of local facilities or geography (i.e. areas of high deprivation and/or rural isolation)
groups underrepresented in the digital technologies sector (i.e. girls and young women, minority groups, children and young people with additional support needs)
other audiences currently unengaged in digital technologies

What we are looking for

Digital Xtra is looking for evidence that the grant is needed, is of value, and that the activity will provide a sustainable positive impact on the provision of extracurricular digital technologies and computing science activity across Scotland for young people aged 16 years or under. Activities which provide ‘real-world’ context for the skills being learnt while promoting industry engagement and/or various career pathways are also particularly of interest. Partnerships with other organisations such as industry, trade bodies, charities, schools, or other extracurricular activity providers are encouraged.

The grant awards programme is made possible by the generous support of Digital Xtra’s Partners and Supporters who all share a common will to inspire young people with technology and give them the skills they need to succeed in an increasingly digital world. In addition to providing financial support, many of the charity’s Partners also look to support successful applicants via employee engagement, further contextualising skills and promoting various career pathways.

To be eligible for a grant award, applicants must meet the following criteria:

Main Applicant is a UK registered company, registered charity, chartered body, local authority, school, college, or university actively involved in the provision of computing education and/or digital technologies related activities for young people
The proposed initiative meets the charity’s Core Objective
The grant requested is between £500 and £5,000
The primary audience are young people aged 16 years or under
The proposed initiative will commence after 1 July 2024 and be completed by 30 June 2025
The proposed initiative will be delivered entirely in Scotland
The activity is considered ‘extracurricular’ in nature

An extracurricular activity is any activity that enables young people to learn digital technologies skills outside the realm of the core school education curriculum; whilst providing a safe, fun, and sociable environment.

Activities delivered in a school environment – such as youth organisations, after-school or lunchtime clubs, or touring programmes – are defined as extracurricular provided they do not form part of core school curriculum daily activity.

Activities which teach other skills related to digital literacy or digital media are excluded from this funding.
Please read the FAQ page or Grant Guidelines for more details.

Round IX (2024/25) Grant Awards

Applications for Digital Xtra’s ninth round of grant awards are now closed.
Thank you to everyone who applied!

Following an application evaluation period throughout April and May 2024, selected applicants will be invited to go through a due diligence process before grants are awarded in late-June. All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application, regardless if they are successful or not, following this evaluation process.

Please follow Digital Xtra Fund on Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn as any updates about the Round VIII (2023/24) Grant Awards will be posted on the Digital Xtra Fund website and communicated via these social media channels. You can also sign up to our newsletter for future updates too.