Kensington MP visits Imperial to see local outreach and engagement activity

Joe Powell, local Kensington and Bayswater MP, visits the Wohl Reach Out Lab

Joe Powell, local MP for Kensington and Bayswater, visited the South Kensington Campus.

Hosted by Imperial’s Director of Outreach, Andrew Tebbutt, the first part of the visit took place in the Wohl Reach Out Lab, a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to delivering hands-on STEM activities and workshops for school children.

Joe learned about the outreach and community engagement activity Imperial does to inspire primary and secondary school children, with a particular focus on underrepresented groups. He saw first-hand how Imperial is fuelling the imaginations of the next generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians in Kensington and Bayswater, London and the UK.

Andrew highlighted how Imperial also provides activities to support children in North Kensington through our social outreach programme, The Invention Rooms, at the White City Deep Tech Campus.

These include the Dangoor Reach Out Makerspace, a workshop and design studio which encourages local young people to gain hands-on experience of making and prototyping. The Maker Challenge programme delivered in the space gives local young people the chance to develop an idea and see it through to creation from making wearable technology to household gadgets.

WestTech Corridor – fuelling local and national growth

Imperial’s President Professor Hugh Brady met with Joe to discuss Imperial’s role in driving forward inclusive economic growth, innovation and entrepreneurship locally and across the UK as part of the WestTech Corridor. The Corridor is a key initiative fuelling growth by capitalising on Imperial’s research and innovation clusters across West London. This includes Albertopolis in Joe’s constituency, home to our South Kensington Campus and many of London’s leading arts, cultural and scientific institutions, museums and galleries.

President Brady highlighted how recent investments and partnerships will empower the WestTech Corridor even further, creating a globally competitive ecosystem that serves as a powerful engine for investment, growth and job creation. This includes a major £150 million investment in a prime industrial site in Old Oak, enabling innovators in areas such as CleanTech, BioTech and MedTech to stay and scale in West London.

Imperial’s new partnership with Bruntwood SciTech will also lead to a £200 million life sciences innovation centre at the White City Deep Tech Campus. The centre will deliver world-class labs and workspaces where deep tech startups, scaleups and global businesses can co-locate, collaborate, and grow alongside Imperial’s academics, clinicians and researchers.