We spoke to founders Tom Phillipson and Alice Havill about Vital Hardware's goals to bridge the diversity gap in the creative industry, the powerful success stories of the charity and how you can play your part.

In a nutshell, what is Vital Hardware?

Our aim is to empower future creatives with the knowledge and technology to succeed and ensure that the UK boasts the world’s most inclusive creative industry.

Working in the creative sector it’s evident we struggle to find homegrown talent, particularly from working-class and ethnically diverse backgrounds. The industry has placed financial barriers along the creative career path, preventing underrepresented and disadvantaged communities from taking the first steps toward becoming creative professionals.

Vital Hardware’s goal is to bridge this diversity gap, equipping and empowering future creatives with the tools and skills to succeed. Through providing laptops and tablets, and collaborating with top creative industry educators, schools, and renowned creative businesses to reduce socioeconomic barriers to creative success.

'The industry has placed financial barriers along the creative career path'

What part do both of you play in Vital Hardware?

Tom: I’m a trustee in Vital Hardware, so although we haven’t full defined our roles as such, the role I’ve naturally fallen into is the catalyst that keeps things moving in the charity, building the bridge between the design industry, and institutions. I have my own resources, working in the industry so I’ve been busy building the relationships, the campaigns and the website.

Alice: I’m also a trustee, and I guess I’m a bit of a do-er, the one who gets us all organised. As well as managing different relationships such as our partnership with the D&AD. And we’re all founders, along with Nick and Mark.

Tom: I’d never set up a charity before so I needed all the help I could get, we’ve played to our strengths, Nick is also a great connector in the industry, Alice is a doer and then Mark who I work with at Your Studio came on board for the financial side of things, to get the charity set up and making sure we’re running properly.

You have a background in design, tell us a little bit about how you got into this?

Tom: So I'm a fourth generation farmer. I think if you're a farmer’s son no one really gives you the credit that you're going to do anything else. So my whole life I kind of failed at school because the assumption was I was just going to be a farmer, so I got just one GCSE In graphics. I then went and sort of bumbled around doing odd jobs. I really, really struggled to kind of find my place in the world and I was always kind of a disruptive kid and in my like late teens I started going down the wrong path, I knew I needed to change direction.

Because I did well in graphics, I thought maybe I'm a creative, maybe I'm a designer, maybe that’s my path, so I started looking at design and found furniture design which followed with a foundation course. Once I got taught the creative process and the design process I just couldn’t believe you get paid to do this, it was mind blowing. So I managed to get an intern job in London, sleeping on my cousin's sofa.

After working in the industry for a few years I then went on to set up my own business ( Your Studio ), which I've run now for 15 years. It's now a global business and works with some of the world's best brands.

'I didn't have any money, I didn't have any experience, I didn't have any connections, and I didn't have a laptop'

Where did the idea from Vital Hardware come from, what made you want to set this up and get involved?

Tom: I think for me, when I reflected back on my journey into the industry, that just wouldn't happen anymore. I didn't go to uni, I didn't have any money, I didn't have any experience, I didn't have any connections, and I didn't have a laptop.

I realised that my journey into the creative industry would not happen for a working class kid now because you need all of those things. So I started going into schools to do talks for 12-15 year olds to talk about the creative industry, to talk about my journey, to try to encourage working class kids into the industry and get inspired by the fact that it is actually for them and they can do it.

A teacher at the Hackney school I was talking at then highlighted to me that not having the technology and not being able to afford them, that's the biggest blocker. When we talked to schools, even they didn’t have the equipment, the most they would be able to get would be a Google Chromebook, which is not going to take Adobe. So I was like OK I can do I can do something about that. I then donated a lot of desktop computers for my office to the school and that’s where Vital Hardware was born.

So then I found other people who are equally as passionate about this like Alice and Nick and Mark, speaking to Central Saint Martins and the D&AD, schools and friends who own agencies. I just realised that there's a lot of people who are passionate about bridging this gap between working class and underrepresented kids in the creative industry. There were two key things that seemed to be missing, one, letting the students know more about the industry -a lot of them are told creative routes are less reliable and they’re getting cut from the school syllabus continuously. But two, access to the kit.

Alice: The idea really started growing. I was having some aligned frustrations in my role in media and advertising in trying to recruit a more diverse team. 90% of the young guys in my teams came from London middle class backgrounds and had gone to university. And it made me think that we really need to start getting people interested at a younger age, because they’re being turned off by the creative industry before even getting to the university stage. Some won’t have the confidence to write their CV’s or apply, they won’t have the connections, and there’s some that don’t even know that jobs like this exist.

'It shouldn't matter where you come from to be creative'

What’s the overall goal for VH and why are programmes like this so important for the design industry?

Alice: It shouldn't matter where you come from to be creative. Creativity doesn't discriminate based on your ethnicity or social economic background. So why isn't the creative industry more diverse?

Our aim is to fill that gap. There a PEC report, who we’ve been working with, that shows that there's a gap of something like 250,000 working class voices in the creative industry. And we want to help slowly start to try and close that and make it easier for people to get there in the first place. We also want to get into policy and conversations with those governments and people involved in school education, place ourselves in that argument, that the arts is not being supported enough and why it's important that it is.

Tom: For us, it's actually making a difference. So until the hardware is provided by government for kids know who need it, then we will always be trying to push to for this. It’s also thinking grass roots - how do we make actual change at a broader level?

I think from my perspective is you can't really do your job without a laptop. Schools get around 150 Adobe licences per school, but they don't have any computers powerful enough to use this, it's almost a blind spot.

What are some of the success stories from Vital Hardware? What programmes have you been involved with, what have you been able to help with?

Alice: Two key projects and partnerships we've got going is with the D&AD and Central St. Martins . They're already doing some amazing outreach programmes, so rather than us trying to go straight from scratch this makes sense to reach out to the people that need support through them.

There’s the D&AD Shift programme, as well as a summer school for people who haven't gone to university to they help them get into the industry. And Central St. Martins have a big project called Insights, but they don’t have the support for computers or equipment which is where we’ve been able to come in. They were just over the moon when we said, look, we can try and help some of these kids make it easier for them again to actually accept a place at Central St. Martins and not have to have the fear that they don't have any of this equipment.

The stories we've heard through these programmes have been lovely because you can see the difference you make. I mean, there was a student who was previously trying to do their entire project on their family's mobile phone. Others have said after they've done the course that the laptops have given them the freedom and allowance to be able to freelance to get more experience at different companies which if they hadn't had the laptop, they could never have done.

And then the third place is in schools. Tom has been visiting schools to talk and build awareness about getting into the creative industry. He's met some great connections and we’ve been able to give some of them desktops that they can use within the school. When you hear a really passionate teacher say ‘Oh my God, I can now show the kids so much more and do so much more.’ You're like, yay!

Tom: You speak to students who have an unstable home life and these laptops give them the opportunity to be able to go and work somewhere safe. We have had some really enriching anecdotal conversations of how it’s positively impacted people's lives through being having the freedom of having their own technology.

I had one parent who wanted a call and say ‘my daughter’s come home and said she wants to be a creative and I want to speak to the person who’s given her this idea.’ And I'm thinking, oh ****, what did I say? I got on a call with her and she had her own sort of hang ups of the creative industry. But it was actually a great conversation to have I was able to say you know, as a creative industry we are trying to do better. We're trying to be more inviting. We're trying to put safeguards in place to support people. The student ended up going to Central St. Martins and her mum was really supportive of it. So it's even got as granular as that.

'You can just see an impact really quickly from them receiving these laptops'

On top of all these brilliant success stories, what’s been your proudest moment with Vital Hardware so far?

Tom: A couple come to mind straight away, I know this sounds like such a simple thing, but setting VH up as an actual charity, it’s such a rigour to get set up I was really just proud that we were able to get through that hurdle. The privilege we now have is actually actioning it and all of us living our passions of doing it. So I was really proud of that moment.

And the first delivery of those 11 desktop computers to a school in Hackney sticks with me. For me that was the very first donation and the teacher came to the studio to pick them up, I just bundled them all into the back of his cab and he was just so happy. I met some of the students who'd used them. It’s those little catalysts that keep me excited and energised.

Alice: I think when you meet some of the students and say, oh I'm from Vital Hardware and they suddenly just jump into a story you haven't heard about what a difference you’ve made, it’s brilliant. Seeing someone actually say it directly is lovely. You can just see an impact really quickly from them receiving these laptops.

How can people get involved and donate to Vital Hardware?

Alice: The more awareness we can get, the more people just get it. It's quite a simple, people understand straight away that these students need the equipment in the first place, it makes sense. And as I said, it gets a result really quickly and the impact is visible straight away.

Tom: I would also say just being that voice in your company, finding who can help and what’s done with the old laptops can really help. We've had some really amazing creative businesses that have donated laptops, but it's all about the voice of the people in the business highlighting what to do with these laptops.

Alice: They're often just in a cupboard, and have been sat there for ages! I'd say the other thing is if they don't have laptops to donate any form of funding is massively appreciated because they don't always come with keyboards or a mouse or chargers. The flux of when companies are getting rid of their laptops isn't consistent, but the school year the kids that are coming in are. The demand for what we are offering is far bigger than what we can supply at the moment so any funding we can get to be able to buy refurbished laptops helps massively.

There’s also benefits for the company donating these, on top of helping the industry, it can go towards your B-corp status, DE&I initiatives and environmental impact, because you're recycling and supporting underrepresented people coming into the industry.

'Ultimately we really want to champion creativity'

What’s next for Vital Hardware?

Tom: Ultimately we really want to champion creativity, to be the bridge and voice for getting the wider working class and those who don’t have usually have the same opportunities into the creative industry.

I feel like there's a lot more room to keep pushing and growing and doing better. The ambition is to grow the programmes we work with and extend our reach outside of the UK. We’ve so far worked with Parsons University in the in the US and RMIT in Australia. We haven't built the network there yet, but the ambition is for it to be a global charity where we really champion hardware and the importance of it.

It's vital to have a laptop to be able to get a job in the creative industry and that in-turn creates a ceiling of wealth. So the bigger ambition of the charity is to change policy around how technology is funded at a government level. That's why we’re working with PEC. That's why we’re trying to dig deeper into where and who makes those policy decisions. Trying to push for them to do a research piece on technology and how technology is a barrier to get into the creative industry.

We've got loads of ideas because we're a bit of a creative bunch and we've got lots of people who want to get involved. We just need more of the outside support now.

Find out ways you can support and donate to Vital Hardware here . & why not take 5 minutes now to ask about laptops in your company?