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Sophie Deen
Deen in 2017
EducationLaw, 2005
Alma materUniversity of Sheffield
Known forChildren's books

Sophie Deen is a children's author and award-winning leader in the field of coding for young people. She is the CEO of Bright Little Labs, an education company that makes educational gender-neutral toys and materials.

Early life

Deen attended Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls from 1989 until 1999 leaving after GCSEs. She received a bachelor's degree in Law at the University of Sheffield in 2005, before completing a Legal Practise Course at The College of Law.[1]

Career

Deen worked as a lawyer at Herbert Smith Freehills, before joining SamKnows.[1] Deen realised she wanted to work with children, and became a school counsellor with Place2Be.[2][3]

She worked for Code Club, where she helped to introduce the new coding curriculum for the United Kingdom with Google and the Department for Education.[4] In 2014 Deen was appointed head of Code Club Pro, which ran training sessions for teachers.[5][6] At Code Club Deen recognised a large group of young people who could not engage.[7]

In 2015 Deen founded Bright Little Labs, who use 'edutaining' stories to get children to learn to code.[8][4] Following a survey of over 1,000 people, Deen found the negative stereotypes in technology are reflected in children's cartoons – and so Bright Little Labs created Detective Dot.[9][10] In an interview with The Guardian, she said that "by age eight, children think that some things are for boys, some things are for girls – from toys to future careers".[11] Her research revealed that "In kids’ cartoons under three per cent of characters are black,".[12] The project raised £14,500 on Kickstarter.[13] It has since reach over 30 countries worldwide.[14] Deen was voted Computer Weekly’s Rising Star at Women in IT 2015.[15] Bright Little Labs was selected by HundrED as one of the most innovative practises in education in the world.[16]

Detective Dot works for the Children's Intelligence Agency (CIA), and invites readers to "become agents, go on missions and do investigations,".[7] Dot's challenges are inspired by citizen science and help young people to engage with data in a real-world way.[17] Bright Little Labs are working with educators, illustrators and writers to create stories and content linked to the computer science curriculum.[18] In 2017 it was listed by The Independent as one of the "10 best coding toys".[19][20]

Deen is the CEO of Bright Little Labs, which became part of Bethnal Green Ventures in 2016.[21][22] Deen was listed in the BIMA Top 100 Awards for the digital industry's brightest stars in 2016 and 2017.[23] Bright Little Labs won the EDF Energy "Pulse Award".[24][25][26]

In 2017 she delivered a TEDx talk at Goodenough College, "The robot revolution – a survival guide for kids".[27][28] She won the 2017 FDM Group Start-up Founder of the Year Award.[29][30] She was listed in the Computer Weekly Top 50 Most Influential Women in Tech shortlist in 2018 and 2019[31][32]

References

  1. ^ a b "Sophie Deen – Linked In". Linked In. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  2. ^ "Sophie Deen – Founder @ Bright Little Labs | Crunchbase". Crunchbase. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  3. ^ "Previous everywoman award winner Sophie Deen talks tech – WITsend". itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  4. ^ a b Caines, Matthew (24 February 2017). "Detective Dot creator: 'Working with kids is the best part of the job'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  5. ^ "Sophie Deen, Head of Code Club Pro talks to BBC Radio Manchester". Audioboom. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  6. ^ "The changing computing curriculum – eat, sleep, code, repeat – Firefly". Firefly. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  7. ^ a b "Detective Dot turns your children into spies (who can code)". The Memo. 24 May 2017. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  8. ^ "Sophie Deen". angel.co. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  9. ^ John, Merlin. "Detective Dot has plans for gumshoe pupils". agent4change.net. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  10. ^ "Detective Dot: Research & Stats". Google Docs. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  11. ^ Card, Jon (5 December 2016). "Robots beware, kids are in training for the jobs of tomorrow". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  12. ^ "'Kids will be cast aside if they can't use tech'". BusinessCloud.co.uk. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  13. ^ "Detective Dot – Adventure stories for a fairer world". Kickstarter. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  14. ^ "Sophie Deen – Emerge Conference". emergeconference.co.uk. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  15. ^ "Sophie Deen, CEO at Bright Little Labs – Most influential women in UK IT: Rising Stars 2015". Computer Weekly. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  16. ^ "Sophie Deen: Education Should Teach Us the Impact We Could Have". hundred.org. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  17. ^ "Children's books must take the lead in promoting tech diversity | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  18. ^ XPRIZE (5 December 2015). "Teaching Kids to Understand Global Issues". HuffPost. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  19. ^ "10 best coding toys". The Independent. 31 October 2017. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  20. ^ "100 of the best educational toys: KS2". TheSchoolRun. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  21. ^ "Detective Dot: showing kids what's what – Hackney Citizen". hackneycitizen.co.uk. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  22. ^ "Bright Little Labs | Bethnal Green Ventures". bethnalgreenventures.com. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  23. ^ "BIMA 100 2017". Issuu. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  24. ^ "The EDF Pulse Awards reveal the best of local innovation". EDF France. 7 March 2017. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  25. ^ "EDF Energy Pulse Awards". EDF Energy. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  26. ^ EDF Energy (24 February 2017), Pulse Awards: Detective Dot – Inspiring the Next Science Generation, retrieved 1 March 2018
  27. ^ "2017 Speakers – TEDxGoodenoughCollege". tedxgoodenoughcollege.com. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  28. ^ TEDx Talks (10 August 2017), The robot revolution – a survival guide for kids | Sophie Deen | TEDxGoodenoughCollege, retrieved 1 March 2018
  29. ^ "Tech industry's brightest stars celebrated at 2017 FDM everywoman in Technology Awards". Everywoman. 8 February 2017. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  30. ^ "FDM Everywoman in Technology Awards shine a light on the brightest female stars in Tech". creativepool.com. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  31. ^ "34. Sophie Deen, CEO, Bright Little Labs – The 50 Most Influential Women in UK Tech 2017". Computer Weekly. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  32. ^ "Computer Weekly announces the Most Influential Women in UK Tech 2019". Computer Weekly. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
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