Derrick was awarded an MBE for services to education in 2018.

He has been active supporting schools since the 1980's. Initially as a Neighbourhood Engineer, then as Chair of the local YES and CPE campaigns in the 1990's and 2000's. He became a volunteer Schools Liaison Officer, now called an Education Officer, for the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in 2006.
He has organised assistance to schools at careers fairs, mock interviews, in-school Big Bang Fairs as well as pupil challenges and speakers typically interfacing with some 15,000 local school pupils and over 500 teachers each year.

Among his other achievements for schools, Derrick has developed over 50 pupil challenges for all ages, all free to download from his web-site www.dwiller.com.
He has also developed a series of twelve pupil challenge kits for primary schools to borrow and has put together a list of over 20 speakers willing to present in schools on their careers and on hot-topics.

The IET devotes a large part of its income to support schools and his presentation will outline the detail of this support available in UK and from the IET Membership world-wide.