Students Venture up to Career Options
6 March 2018 – Two students from Yoobee School of Design, Nicola Gamble and Joshua Malcolm have just returned from a month long startup
accelerator experience for youth in New Zealand, called Venture Up. The programme attracts future entrepreneurs and
business leaders and aims to give them the tools for success.
With a dedicated Yoobee Careers Advisor available to students, Nicola and Joshua were alerted to the programme by Yoobee
Careers Advisor Tulia Moss, who felt the programme would be a good fit for their career development, and their potential
as stand-out, active entrepreneur participants.
Tulia said, “Yoobee loves challenging business expectations by providing fresh young creatives who can, and do, excel as
industry-ready-graduates. And our students definitely had an excellent experience with Venture Up, and are now inspired
to think broadly about their career options.”
Venture Up has been in operation since 2015 and has put over 100 youth aged 16-24 into a collaborative space,
surrounding them with the best mentors in the business world and taught them essential leadership skills for the future.
Nicola said, “While I always had goals of owning a business, I never thought at 21 I would be heading down the path of
being a co-founder of a startup company. It showed me that my goals were possible, and they were possible much sooner
than I had thought realistic. Venture Up has accelerated and changed my plans for the future and I'm incredibly excited
to see where I end up.”
Joshua adds, “It also means we can access networks and mentors within the entrepreneur community, which is invaluable when you’re
heading into that space. I now have a basic understanding on how businesses are made and I'll be able to apply this when
starting a business on my own. Being in a creative industry, there is higher chance that we will start our own
businesses, and this experience has been fantastic for me.”
Furthermore, Joshua says, “Yoobee has given me the skills I need for my career in Advanced 3D Graphics, and I’m now
inspired, and hungry to do more things, and wanting to start or plan out a ton of projects.”
Nicola feels similar, and says, “Over the last two years I’ve been studying Creative Digital Design at Yoobee and it has
taught me many things, but the most helpful for Venture Up was design thinking, customer validation, marketing and
advertising, how to apply feedback, teamwork and agile processes just to name a few. Having an understanding about these
aspects meant that while I had no business background, I could hit the ground running at the same pace as everyone
else.”
Yoobee School of Design Head of School Nick Webster says, “These kinds of experiences are always incredibly beneficial
for our students, and we are pleased to be able to work with accelerator programmes such as Venture Up to offer such
highly valuable opportunities for our students and graduates. As always the aim is to equip our students with the skills
to enable them to hit the ground running with that all-important first job, and any value added opportunities help to
make them even more employable.”
ENDS