VOLUNTARY WORK
NTU Alumni Fellowship Program
Being an alumni of Nottingham Trent University, class of 2003, Theatre Design, BA Hons, I was honoured some 12 years later to be invited to be a part of the Business Schools Alumni Fellowship Scheme.
The scheme connects business students with business owners to allow the sharing of knowledge and support through various activities and projects organised by the alumni and employability departments.
So for over the past six years of being involved, I have participated in various projects including the Thinkubator Challenge three years running, supported academics with their roles in organised NTU’S very first business networking event, buddied with academics in guest lectures, shared my experiences with new alumni fellows at the welcome events, facilitated new students during freshers week, been on panels offering feedback for student presentations and delivered my own workshops and guest lectures during personal development week and this is all on top of 1:1 coaching and mentoring sessions with International business students.
Entrepreneur in Residence Scheme
I am a proud member of the University of Nottingham’s Entrepreneur in Residence scheme, designed to bring together students and business professionals through the Ingenuity Lab.
My role is to get involved in student projects, offering coaching and mentor support and delivering training sessions through their round table series.
In the three years I have been a member, I have delivered several sessions both in-person and online, as well as supported various projects and mentored students on a 121 basis.
Ingenuity Projects
Over the years I have contributed my time to many ingenuity projects ran by The Ingenuity Lab at University of Nottingham.
My role has always been as a coach and mentor on a group basis with the focus on business ideas, supporting students with their business plans and pitches.
The project runs annually and takes place in various stages including focused group activities as well as a large boot camp where all 500+ students come together for the day to share their business ideas on stage.
Pictured: Ingenuity 16 Bootcamp (2016)
This fast paced, busy day consisted of 500+ business students taking part and my role was to coach and mentor a team of 10 students round the table as part of the boot camp phase of the project, which contributed towards their final course module and exams, to which each of them were working on a business idea.
Thinkubator Challenge
This is a fantastic student project I love getting involved with every year at Nottingham Trent University as part of their personal development.
My role is as facilitator to a group of 10-15 students in this day long activity which involves research, discussion, idea generation and presentation skills.
Each group works with a real-life business who present their challenge (s) to the students as part of the brief and their task is to present some viable options of research and solutions through a power-point presentation at the end of the day.
Group mentorship with International Business Masters Students
University of Nottingham
Spanning over five years, I was involved in facilitating groups of International business Masters students from mainly China and India at the University of Nottingham through the headship of Dr Hannah Noke.
The projects would require me to submit a business challenge to my teams, to which they would work together to research and present their findings to myself and a panel of academics as part of their course module.
My role was to coach them through the project, outlining my brief and facilitating their research, offering support where necessary, right through to offering feedback to both the student team and the academics post presentation.
121 Student Mentorship
With Nottingham Trent University & University of Nottingham.
For the past 10 or so years I have volunteered my time to mentor business students at both Nottingham based University’s on 121 basis.
Each term, I am assigned a new mentee where we spend three months on a fortnightly basis meeting up (more recently during the pandemic this has been taken online).
My role is to listen to the student and offer support, advice and share my experience and knowledge where relevant.
Many of the discussions include work assignments, internships and placements, as well as mindset and overall wellbeing.
It is my intention to offer support in any area that is needed and of course is different with each student.
Pitch @ Palace
I was delighted to be asked to take part in the Pitch @ Palace initiative ran by Price Andrew, The Duke of York through the University of Nottingham.
I was allocated a team of two business owners who ran an already established and successful International children gadget company, who were looking to expand and gain notoriety and further support through the project.
If successful, teams would then get be invited to St James Palace to pitch further with the intent of winning the competition.
My role throughout the project and the day was to coach and mentor my team through their pitching journey offering support and advice.
Our team was chosen to be a finalist in the top 12 out of hundreds of entrants and as such were invited to St James Palace for the finals!
