Maggie Philbin OBE

Maggie Philbin spent more than 30 years in broadcasting, much of it making science and technology understandable to people who did not already speak the language.

On Tomorrow’s World, she demonstrated emerging technologies that would later become part of everyday life, from mobile phones and virtual reality to navigation systems and barcode readers. Her job was to take something unfamiliar and make its possibilities feel real.

But another problem became harder to ignore.

Young people were growing up surrounded by technology without necessarily understanding the careers, skills and people behind it. Philbin had spent years showing audiences what innovation looked like. She wanted young people to see themselves as the ones who could create it.

So, in 2008, she co-founded TeenTech with Chris Dodson.

The idea was practical from the start: bring young people together with scientists, engineers, technologists and employers, let them experience the work for themselves and give outdated assumptions about who belongs in those industries rather less room to survive.

TeenTech now supports more than 12,000 young people each year, with around 75,000 using its resources. Philbin has gone from explaining technological change to audiences to building the connections that allow a new generation to take part in it.

She never really stopped reporting on the future. She just decided showing it to people wasn’t enough.