A DIGITAL graduate responsible for designing Foundation for Jobs' new website has praised a scheme designed to keep industry talent in the North-East.

Teesside University graduate Tobias Wilkins was employed to develop www.foundationforjobs.co.uk after the project approached the Digital City Fellowship scheme.

As part of the ethos of Foundation for Jobs, it's felt important to offer opportunities to young people starting out in business to work on projects related to the campaign, thereby helping them to build up a professional portfolio at the same time as developing their business skills.

Mr Wilkins, 27, a computer animation graduate, joined the scheme in February 2013 .

It is run by Teesside University in partnership with the Tees Valley Digital City project and aims to help digital talent develop and grow their businesses here in the North-East.

The scheme, which is European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) funded, is open to graduates, regardless of which university they attended, who are living in the North-East and have a digital business idea.

It provides a tax free start-up grant of up to £4,000 as well as business training and industry mentoring.

The new Foundation for Jobs website is designed to support the national award winning project and be used by not only young people and school age pupils, but also businesses.

It therefore had to be simple and clear to use while catering for a wide variety of target groups, accessing it on a variety of media including PCs, tablets and smartphones.

Mr Wilkins, who now runs www.tobiaswilkins.com , said: “The Digital City Fellowship has really helped me progress as a freelancer and has opened up a lot opportunities to work on fantastic projects, such as the Foundation for Jobs website.

“It has been a really interesting site to both design and develop for and I've learnt a lot from the whole experience."

Established to tackle growing youth unemployment Foundation for Jobs, a partnership between The Northern Echo, Darlington Borough Council and The Darlington Partnership of private and public sector organisations has worked with 2,700 young people since its launch in January 2012.

Last month, The Duke of York, Prince Andrew, visited the project to see its work for himself.

He said: “What's going on here that is important is matching young people's desires and aspirations with the business need.

"The Foundation is having an excellent run at it.”

To apply for a Digital City Fellowship or for more information visit www.digitalcityfellowships.org

Applications for the next round of fellowships must be submitted by May 19.