This past weekend London Metropolitan University’s Creative Enterprise Manager Frances Brown traveled to Wales to facilitate the Creative Starts Programme at Cardiff University.
During Frances’ two hour long session, she spoke on how to develop ideas, identify skills gaps, and visually plan one’s creative start. She also spoke to participants at the event about using their talents to make money while thy are at university or set up a business for after graduation. By doing this, many of the students involved with the Cardiff University Enterprise programme now have a much better understanding on the proper steps needed to start a business as well as how they can use their creative skills to turn their idea into a business after graduation.
Frances enjoyed her day at Cardiff, “I had a great time running the creative starts session with the Cardiff students, particularly as they were studying subjects ranging from maths to heath care PhD’s to music but had come with creative animation ideas, magazines and inventions to improve supermarket shopping and renewable energy! Really impressed with their creativity and that a number of them were already trading!”
The two hour Creative Starts event targeted creative artists, makers, crafters, or performers, who were interested in making money at university or setting up a business after graduation. It is part of Inspiring Enterprise Week hosted by Cardiff University. As part of this event, Cardiff recorded short videos of many of the speakers during the week. In the videos, the various speakers from the event discuss what inspired them to get involved with enterprise.
Here is the video on Frances and what inspired her to work in creative enterprise at Accelerator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0N8m8gKugI
Frances made the video in part of Inspiring Enterprise Week hosted by Cardiff University. Inspiring Enterprise Week is a week-long festival of events and workshops which showcase the inspirational enterprising students and staff from across the university. Enterprising activities take place across Cardiff University throughout the year and take many forms, from innovative and inventive academic staff to student societies and graduate or staff spinout companies. The week is an opportunity to celebrate all of these activities.
The goal of this week is to help show students who are interested in enterprise that it is not just about business. It is a skillset which enables someone to spot a problem or identify a need, seize the opportunity and put their own ideas into practice. This includes skills such as creativity, innovation, opportunity recognition, networking, negotiation and commercial awareness. Enterprise is about more than simply having ideas: it is about the subsequent action and making those ideas happen.
Be sure to check out Frances’ video with the link above, and check out all the other videos as Cardiff University Enterprise’s YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpZeJIJsKaWr5u3GGxKCAgQ