HOW does one of the UK's leading media companies engage with young people? That was the challenge laid before an enthusiastic group.

Staff from CN Group - in-Cumbria's parent company - and undergraduates from the University of Cumbria took part in a special CN Hackathon.
This took place at the university's campus in Brampton Road, Stanwix, and featured eight CN staff from across the firm's departments and seven students.

They were asked to find ways to engage with a demographic of 16-34-year-olds, who are often though to be a challenging audience for print media.

"Today is about trying to engineer empowerment and discuss collective change," Miller Hogg, the chief executive of CN Group explained:

"Ideas are not top down, they can come from anywhere, but you need a process."

He added that he sees this as the first of many similar events for CN Group and that these could be used to address various different challenges which the company comes across.

Participants were divided into groups where they were tasked with coming up with their new ideas, which they presented at the end of the session. Alongside Mr Hogg, CN Group's group HR director Elaine Jordan, Alison Marshall, professor of health technology and innovation at the university and John Beery, development manager at the university's enterprise and business development team, led the event.

Mr Berry said: "Its good for our students to have experience of commercial business."

He added that the university was interested in holding similar events in the future.

Two people taking part spoke about their experience of the day.

Chelsea Plunkett, 27, creative editor at CN Group, said: "I am from Carlisle and I have always been aware of the CN products whereas some of the people here have come from outside and we will get a different perspective."

Ben Wangenye, 22, a film and TV production student, added: "It is good to know that someone wants to listen to people like me who do not tend to read newspapers."