We talked to MSP about the work they do around STEM to celebrate how Northumberland businesses promote STEM subjects within the community.

MSP paving the way

MSP is a CNC manufacturing software and hardware specialist based in Alnwick, Northumberland. The company produces solutions designed to make CNC machining processes more automated and precise  so its customers can produce right-first-time parts every time. Its customers range over a multitude of industries including aerospace, motorsports, composites and energy.

For National STEM day 2022, we caught up with them to hear about the work they do around STEM and the various activities they do to support this in the North East and Northumberland.

Working with schools and colleges

MSP has worked with its local school, The Duchess’s Community High School, on various schemes to encourage students to learn about STEM subjects in a practical and wider way. Thanks to MSP engineers as mentors for these projects, students of varying ages have learnt about manufacturing, CNC machining and coding solutions to solve real life problems.

MSP has also worked alongside Newcastle College to develop a new foundation degree. The Engineering with Applied Digital Technologies degree has been designed to bridge the gap between engineering and manufacturing and help create a future of digitally-enabled engineers.

Bursary scheme for students

The company has also offered a Bursary Scheme, in which they support students with University tuition fees, and the students work with them over summer break and once university has finished. Their first participant, Laurence Reeves joined MSP full time after graduating in 2017 and is now a PerfectPart Technical Lead, driving innovation and product development within that suite of products.

STEM Programme support

Last year, MSP sponsored the Mission Discovery North East Programme lead by NASA astronauts. This programme gave young people the opportunity to design their own science experiment, with the winning entry to be built at NASA and launched into space.

Along with other North East based companies, MSP were also one of the sponsors for TechUp Women, giving women the chance to retrain for a career in the digital and tech sector. Since then, they have been involved in other TechUp bootcamps in order to continue to inspire and engage people in STEM subjects and careers.

At Advance Northumberland, we’re delighted to see businesses do amazing things, both for their business success and for the local community. We’re looking forwards to seeing what they have planned next to help inspire a future generation of STEM students. Find out more about MSP on their website www.mspltd.com