Catch them young

31 March 2023

Interest in an environmentally friendly business startup has shown that many young people are keen on careers involving the repair and maintenance of equipment. 

Established by five entrepreneurial Imperial College London engineers, the embryonic Team Repair business sends out kits to children containing an electric toy or electronic gadget with a deliberately introduced fault that they are tasked with identifying and repairing. 

Subscribers to the service receive a project each month. Typical items could include a radio, a metal detector or a remote controlled car and they arrive with the necessary tools to make the repair. Once fixed, it is posted back for a new fault to be created for someone else to mend. 

The business attracted attention in national media recently and perhaps it is something that hirers could emulate. Industry associations have held various initiatives in recent years to tell schoolchildren about careers in hire and maybe these could be expanded. 

And as the blog has reported, hirers like Speedy have held online sessions to reach out to young people thinking about future job choices. 

Certainly, a visit to a hirer’s workshop - where any equipment faults have to be quickly identified and rectified ready for the next customer - would be like an Aladdin’s Cave for an enthusiastic and tech-savvy youngster. 

Photo: Team Repair