12 February 2021
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Training
Week one of Future Now
That's a close on the first week of our Future Now programmes, check out our highlights
From industry led training sessions to learning how to build a great mindset by therapy motivation sessions, the Future Now group have had the chance to really connect and understand their peers and chosen industry.
Our programme officers, Tyra Alexander , Lucy Carasco and Beth Kahn talk us through how the week went below.
FUTURE SOFTWARE DEVELOPER NOW
This week the Future Software Developer Now cohort were introduced to their first brief assignment set by Hero.
The focus of the week has been all about planning and preparing how they will collaborate to deliver their projects and providing access to extra resources and ways to support their learning.
Receiving a brief in the first week of a programme can sometimes be intimidating, so the “Imposter Syndrome” session with Licensed therapist Stevon Lewis was a great way to ease some of those insecurities and give the group some confidence.
We also took part in an excellent session delivered by Google Digital Garage on “Optimising your remote team” to help the participants brainstorm ways to collaborate on their projects in remote working environments. This geared the team up well to meet their brief work groups and kick their first team meetings off to a flying start.
During the optimising your remote teams session participants from the Future Software Developer Now cohort said that they now had some really great ideas on how to collaborate with their fellow team members by using tools like Miro, Trello and Zoom.
During our “Meet your teams” session, participants were glad to get a chance to network with the wider group as it was something they were not expecting from a remote programme.
After taking part in the GUAP Story, Radi Choudhury said
“The GUAP founders were inspirational”
and Mary Sogbanmu said
“I loved the practical advice”
Following on from a jam-packed first week, in week 2 we will be giving the cohort an opportunity to really get cracking with their briefs, supported by mentor catch-up and supplementary content on Code refactoring and stakeholder management.
We will also be hearing a little about what it’s like to work as a software developer at Hero.
Written by Programme Officer Tyra Alexander from YSYS (leading Future Software Developer Now)
This week the Future Creative Content Now cohort were introduced to their brief assignment set by Epic Games. This week has been all about getting to grips with the brief and preparing how they will collaborate to deliver their projects and being introduced to the different aspects of storytelling.
Entering the creative industry, in general, can be very intimidating. The Future Creative Content Now group joined the “Imposter Syndrome” session with Licensed therapist Stevon Lewis with the other Future Now participants too. It was a great way for everyone to come together share experiences, reset mindsets and give each other confidence.
Ibrahim and Jide co-founders of Guap magazine kicked off the course by delivering an inspiringly honest talk about their journey to the position they are in now.
During their first ‘Storytelling through Sound’ workshop hosted by Axel Kacoutie, some interesting ideas around the importance of sound to us were explored, with Axel mentioning, “If Pictures worth a thousand words then sound is worth a thousand pages”.
Rosie Taylor hosted an incredible portrait workshop, where the participants were able to get to know each other a bit better. They paired up and had to direct and frame a screenshot portrait of the other which included elements that told a story about that person.
Following from an amazing week 1, in week 2 the cohort will be getting stuck into the brief in their teams, supported by the rolling industry tutorials every Thursday and the next instalment of Storytelling sessions from Axel and Naana.
We will also be hearing about the importance of design & visuals, how to boss our socials and the importance of curation.
Written by Programme Officer Lucy Carasco (leading Future Creative Content Now)
This week we kicked off our Future Startup Founder Now course with a group of 25 young entrepreneurs who each have business ideas in development.
This week was all about getting to know each other and starting to flesh out their concepts as they work towards the final week pitch.
We covered the lean startup methodology, how to set milestones for your business to meet your targets, and how to build a team to complement your strengths.
The group also met their mentors for the first time and somehow found the time to set up our first ever Create Jobs book group!
It’s been brilliant to see the supportive and collaborative atmosphere created within the cohort in such a short time and the synergies between many of the business ideas. Sustainability, inclusivity, and support for independent artists and makers are strong themes across the businesses and we can’t wait to see how these ideas develop.
One of our Founders, Mildred Cheng, had a busy week juggling the sessions with launching her a Lunar New Year virtual exhibition and online store Don’t Call Me Oriental.
The group found meeting the creators of GUAP really inspirational and loved hearing their story of building a successful brand from scratch. They took on board Ibrahim and Jide’s advice about networking sideways and building up a strong peer network, which we followed up with a Zoom networking session to allow them to get to know each other better in small groups, which the cohort really enjoyed
Marie Krebs’ session on the lean startup methodology was a great introduction to some key business concepts to help the group start to develop their offer, while Pac O’Shea’s session on milestones set out some tangible steps the group can take to achieve their vision.
Marie and Pac will be back next week to follow up on the homework tasks they set and hear the group present back their work.
Next week – pitch preparation kicks off with a session on ideation from Abraham Asefaw, we’ll have a workshop on making the most of Linkedin, and we dive deeper into Minimum Viable Products.
Written by Programme Officer Beth Kahn (leading Future Startup Founder Now)
