Our founder's 42 minute talk at Solihull College, with captions and a transcript, and what it means when you choose where your child learns to code.
By Robocode. For parents, 14 October 2026, 9 min read
A room of computing students at Solihull College had been given one day to finish a data project, and the groups had just presented it. Then Khaled Ayad, the founder of Robocode, stood up to give a talk. The title on his first slide was Modern employability.
The talk is 42 minutes long and it plays below, from our own site, with captions and a transcript you can read without pressing play. After it come his points, in the order he made them, and then what they mean for a family choosing where a child learns to code.
Modern Employability Talk at Solihull College · 42 minutes
Captions Khaled Ayad, Robocode. Filmed at Solihull College and first published in February 2025. Also on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Read the transcript
Use the tools, and do your own writing
He started with the project. The students had used ChatGPT to get a day's work done, and he told them that was right: at their level, use the tools that are available.
He drew one line. Do not have it write for you. Writing is a skill, and you forget how if you stop thinking for yourself.
Employed, and an employer
Next came a caution. A job is not the right aim for everybody, and he was not there to promote one. He was there to say what makes a person easier to hire.
He spoke from both chairs. He still lectures at a university, with a manager who gives him tasks. He also set up a company in education and employs other people.
Then an admission. His A levels did not go well, and nor did the start of university. Then something clicked. The marks went to the top, and the day after he finished his degree the university gave him a job.
What employability is
His slide put it in one line: "Employability means having the qualities, knowledge, and behaviours that make someone ready to succeed in a job or career."
He spent longest on knowledge. A college is a place to learn, he said, and anyone there only for the certificate is in the wrong place. If the certificate is your one goal, "that piece of paper will mean nothing".
He has employed people with a PhD who could not make a flyer. An employer finds out quickly whether you know what you are talking about.
His advice was to pick one or two skills you like and become the best at them. In his own maths degree he chose statistics.
The essential skills
Communication
This came first. If you are always in arguments, look at how you communicate, because nine times out of ten the problem is with you. At work, say what is wrong when it first comes up. Do not keep it in and then quit, or write a long complaint to your manager's manager.
Teamwork
His example was a footballer who shoots every time he is in front of goal, when a clear pass would have scored. The team does worse. Work is the same: know your role, and how it adds to the bigger picture.
You can be the star at your role, but you don't need to be the star of the whole place.
Khaled Ayad, 12 minutes into the talk
Problem solving
The students had been told to use RStudio. One group used a different analytics tool, and still presented the data, the graphs and the statistics. Marking it, he found nothing wrong with it. "And that's problem solving."
He added one condition: do it neatly. Paint a room and leave paint on the floor, and you have given yourself more work. He once needed electrical work done at the centre, and it was done by drilling a hole through the wall for the wire.
They solved the problem, but they left me with a hole in the wall.
Khaled Ayad, 15 minutes into the talk
Digital skills
Knowing your way round a phone is not the same thing. He meant the plain tools first: email, documents and spreadsheets. A close friend of his got a well-paid job because he knew how to use Outlook. And Excel goes further than most people think: you can write real code in it.
Online etiquette
An employer cares who you are away from work, because you represent them there too. Almost every company now looks at what you have put online, he said, and when he hires, he looks as well. If there is something there you are not proud of, take it down.
Organisation and time management
If you cannot manage your own time, you will not manage other people's. Work handed in five minutes before the deadline, unchecked, makes you look unreliable. It comes back to the painted room: the aim is to do the job well.
Building experiences
"Just work anywhere." A shop, a bakery or a chip shop, unpaid for two or three weeks if that is what it takes. The point is to learn what a place of work is like.
Universities and apprenticeships look for it, he said, along with what you do outside lessons: a team, a club, something you lead. Do the thing you are interested in. Do not join the chess club just to write it down.
Personal branding and networking
Think of yourself as a brand. Your profile picture is your logo, and an employer will see it. On LinkedIn, look at how people who are doing well in your field present themselves.
Make your CV easy to read, with the experience that fits the job. And do not use one-click apply to send it to a hundred jobs. "If you take that approach, you're going to get zero jobs." You do not know whether you want to work at any of them, and each employer can tell.
Is it what you know, or who you know? "I think it's both." Keep in touch with classmates, teachers and relatives. Some of his own contacts only mattered years after he made them.
Mindset and resilience
Some people are good at what they do until it gets hard, and then they give up. Resilience is built by doing something when you do not feel like it: a fast walk, or a weight at the gym you did not think you could lift. Then it carries over to your work.
Set goals too, even a small one for tomorrow.
The one-day project
Then he came back to the project. Before the day, he was told it was too much work for one day. He said to leave it as it was. Under pressure, the students worked out how to finish it.
The lesson he drew: a task stretches to the time you allow it. So next time, give yourself a deadline of your own, today, and do not wait for the real one.
And have a purpose, however small it sounds. One of his is to teach maths properly. A university student he had lectured the day before laughed, and called that sad. His answer: "the alternative is I'm going to do it badly."
His summary
The last slide had three lines:
- Start building skills early (both 'soft' and 'hard').
- Skills & Certificates, not just certificates.
- Keep learning and be flexible to adapt to new technology and job trends.
The students had not yet had to choose between network engineering, cyber security and software development. So look at what is in demand, he said, and become good at that. Asked a question at the end, he described one way to find out: gather every open job advert from a jobs site into a spreadsheet, and study it.
Choosing where your child learns to code
The talk was for college students, but most of it applies years earlier. Here is what we would look for in any place that teaches a child to code, and what Robocode does about each.
Skills first, then the certificate
Ask what your child will have made by the end. At Robocode that is a drone, a robot arm, a line follower and working games: skills you can point to on a shelf at home.
The qualification follows the skill. We offer BCS Level 1 and Level 2 qualifications; Level 2 is at the level of a GCSE. Robocoders sit them at a Robocode exam centre, after the courses that teach the skill.
A room, a Mentor and a team
Communication and teamwork are learned with other people. Our classes are in person, in small groups, with the same Mentor each week.
On our competition team, Robocoders apply to a department and hold that job for the whole season. There are six: Construction, Programming, CAD, Media, Outreach and Finance. In June 2026 that team finished 15th in the world.
Solve it, then improve it
Every Robocode session runs on three words: Imagine. Build. Improve. The third word is the painted room and the hole in the wall. Getting it to work is half the job.
Real tools, and their own thinking
Robocoders learn the tools by making things with them: Robotics, Game Development, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security, 3D Printing and Mechanics and GCSE Computer Science. In AI the aim is the one from the talk: use the tool, and keep the thinking yours. We wrote about that in Let them direct.
Experience before a CV needs it
Our work experience is for Year 10 and 11 students, at a Robocode centre, and it runs as a simulated game studio. Our holiday camps run every school holiday, and each day is a four-hour project sprint with a finished build at the end.
A weekday route for home-educating families
Home-educating families can also study for GCSEs on weekdays with the Luminary Tech Path, a structured weekday programme of real projects.
Where to start
Robocode classes are in person, for ages 6 to 17. The first step is a Free Tech Assessment: 30, 45 or 90 minutes, depending on the centre, with a Mentor, in person, at your nearest centre. Your child builds something, and you watch. And if your child does not need the full course, we will tell you.
Book a Free Tech Assessment
30, 45 or 90 minutes, depending on the centre, in person, with a Mentor. No card details until it is a fit.
Find your nearest centreA talk like this for your school or college
We offer a similar talk for schools, colleges and organisations. Write to us and tell us who would be in the room.
- Schools: we also run a free workshop for your pupils, taught in person by our Mentors, and programmes after it. Request a school pack.
- Clubs and groups: robotics, coding and game development for your group, at your venue or in our Studio Lab. Tell us about your group.
- Councils: holiday camps, HAF places and programmes for the children in your area. Tell us what your area needs.