UTC Swindon, the university technical college opening this September, has received microcontroller boards worth £4,500 from Intel, the US tech giant with a major base in the town.
The 90 Galileo boards will be used by students to learn about advanced computing technology and microchip design – a key sector for the future of Swindon’s economy. The town is already widely recognised as a major base for chip design and has a long heritage in microprocessing dating back to the earliest days of the industry. 
The Galileo board is based on the Intel Quark SoC X1000, a 32-bit Intel Pentium-class system on a chip (SoC).
Intel’s Swindon site is one of the group’s major sales bases for the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) regions and is one of the town’s largest employers. Intel Corporation UK is a partner of UTC Swindon.
UTC principal Angela Barker-Dench said the donation reaffirmed UTC Swindon’s position as a leading educational establishment in the field of technology before it has opened.
She said: “As well as strengthening our partnership with one of the world’s biggest names in IT, this donation will enable our students to learn with cutting-edge technology. This is vital to preparing young people for the workplace and their futures beyond UTC Swindon.”
Intel IT product manager Darren Howell added: “As a major player in the worldwide computing industry and a key employer in Swindon, we have a vested interest in the training and education of young people in the area.”
UTC Swindon will be run by a trust sponsored by Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells and Oxford Brookes University. It will have 600 students aged 14 to 19 who aspire to a career in engineering. The college, now under construction, will provide opportunities to gain the necessary skills across all the diverse sectors of the engineering industries.
