There's only one week left until the pitches take place where our young creatives will be showcasing all the work they've been doing. Hear the highlights and find out how they're preparing themselves to ace it next week!
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.
We’re into the penultimate week of the Founders course and looking forward to the final pitches, with the group working hard to get their presentations ready.
We started the week with programme partner and Founder of Hustle Crew Abadesi Osunsade sharing her top tips for networking and relationship building.
Next up Iulia Taylor joined us for an introduction to the complex world of investment, and Chrissie Smith shared some handy No Code Tools to automate key business processes.
Andy Ayim returned for another interactive and engaging session full of insights on UX and user interviews which the group found very valuable as they worked to better understand their target markets.
This aligned well with Raquel Soares’s follow up session as the Founders shared their user personas they had created for their target customers.
Yumika Brewster delivered an interesting session on leadership styles with some useful insights for the group and challenged them to reflect on what kind of leader they would like to be as they build their businesses.
Coming up next week…
Bejay Mulenga joins us for a session on How to Fail Well inspired by the highs and lows of his career, and the group showcase everything they’ve learned throughout the course at the final pitch events.
This week we heard from Health-tech start-up, Thriva on their core technologies and leadership.
It was great to hear from their team to provide some perspective on a day in the life of a software developer, as well as hearing from their head of Engineering, Yemi Awoyemi on his personal journey into leadership.
On top of this, week 5 was the deadline for the cohorts Brandwatch Brief, so we held a feedback session to share learnings, solve blockers and suggest improvements ahead of their final showcase next week.
We also had two super interactive sessions with 10X Banking on the importance of testing (Functional and non-functional) which resulted in some awesome key learnings - have a look!
One highlight this week was a really inspirational talk given by Yemi Awoyemi, Head of Engineering at Thriva.
During this session the cohort learned about Yemi’s journey into leadership and the hurdles he persevered through to get to where he is today.
The cohort found it really inspiring and timely considering that the programme will be finishing next week. It was also a great opportunity for the group to ask questions relating to their own personal journeys and they certainly did!
One thing that the cohort found particularly interesting was to hear about both functional and non functional testing as it relates to the role of a software developer. It was useful as it helped to paint a real picture of what it would look like to work in an agile team on ever evolving products.
Another well received session was our feedback hour with the Brandwatch software development team. The cohort was tasked with a brief to build a Game of Thrones web application which allows users to view a list of characters, houses or books using An Api of Ice and Fire.
After just over a week working on the project, the groups came together in this feedback session, were able to receive real time feedback from the Brandwatch team and also take hints and tips from each other on how to improve their products. It was a hit, and the teams are looking forward to presenting their final products at the showcase next Thursday!
Coming up next week...
Next week will be the final week of the Future Software Developer Now programme. We intend to fill the week with employability workshops on interview best practices, career panels and presentation practice for the final showcase. We’re really looking forward to celebrating the progress and growth of the cohort!
The Future Creative Content now cohort enter their penultimate week, they will have their last session with Axel and Rosie.
They will also have a live streaming talk from Ric Salmon of Driift and ATC, a Pitch Practice session with Will Worsdell and a talk on Developing, Casting & Shooting Short-form docs for Channel 4 True Stories with Ellie and Jon from Barcroft Media.
Ric Salmon from Driift/ATC joined the group on Tuesday to talk all things live streaming.
Ric spoke about the difference in filming and the way artists perform in these new live stream events compared to the recording of a traditional live performance, how you can play with camera angles, sound, lighting etc. He also touched on how scarcity creates value and the importance of creating a unique moment that people want to come to.
Scarcity = Value
Ubiquity = No Value
Some responses to Ric presentation of the live performances, Tarnjeet Johal
“Everything’s thought out so well with location, visuals, audio everything.”
Tina
“so cool seeing a museum turned in to a concert venue!”
In Naana’s penultimate storytelling workshop she asked he group what they had learnt about themselves during the sessions, Debo said
“I learnt how to communicate my ideas clearly, I don’t have to write a paragraph, I could send an image or write a song there are other mediums to get my vision across.”
Aisha followed up with a thought that resonated with a lot of the group,
“Traditionally being an emotional person is looked down on over being a logical person. I realised being an emotional person means I am emotionally intelligent, which is a strength I can utilise that within my storytelling”
Will Worsdell from The Park held an interactive workshop around pitching, which covered areas like ‘selling’ yourself, managing your nerves, dealing with questions and speaking about your work
“Being a strategist is like being an architect who has the vision and the creatives are like the builders who make it happen”
Jon Eastman and Ellie Winstanley from Barcroft Media joined the group to speak about the full creative process involved in producing short-form Channel 4’s True Stories documentaries.
They spoke on the importance of making the subjects in the films feel comfortable by making the process more human and less intimidating/flashy, a way to do this could be getting them involved with minor parts of the set up so they feel part of the team.
It was emotional last session saying goodbye to Axel in his last session with the group, he asked them to share what they’ve learned and enjoyed
“I’m a really visual person but doing these classes with you Axel has really opened up my eyes to audio and made me realise what a powerful medium sound actually is.”
Coming up next week...
The group move into their final week of the programme with their pitches for the Epic Games panel, a post-production workshop from Electric and the last instalment of Naana’s Storytelling workshop focusing on evaluation.
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