On Thursday 15th February SPACE4 hosted a careers event in collaboration with the Islington Somali Community (ISC). Our goal was to encourage young men in their community to take advantage of what SPACE4 and Founders and Coders (one of our main tenants) has to offer in the heart of Finsbury Park.
We welcomed a good crowd of 20 young Islington residents through our door. None of them were working in tech but all of them were aspiring to.
Natasha started with a 15 minute presentation from SPACE4. She spoke about:
- Outlandish and tech-for-good digital projects.
- The opportunity to book 30 minute skill sharing sessions with our members through our new skills bank.
- Free training and workshops through our masterclass programme.
- Free discussion and networking events.
- Subsidised desks and meeting room hires.
- £5 Community Lunch to meet our freelancers and businesses.
- And the SPACE4 team who they can always contact via email space4@outlandish.com about tech/coops/social impact businesses.
Beth from Founders and Coders then spent the rest of the session talking about Founders and Coders’ bootcamp and did a short introductory workshop about the capabilities of AI.
Many of the attendees took particular interest in the coding bootcamp and were eager to apply. Beth explained how it all works; the 3-month part-time programme, the employment mentoring, and then the apprenticeship scheme. A few people left the session ready to start their application. More info can be found on the FAC website.
Beth also did a fantastic job of explaining the importance of prompt engineering in getting the most of AI tools. She definitely inspired audience members to sign up to some AI masterclasses she’s running at SPACE4 – in fact we signed someone up on the spot. More resources on the workshop can be found here.
Before breaking for dinner, Yussuf Ahmed, the ISC Coordinator’s gave a speech encouraging young people to explore the tech industry and engage with the field for better opportunities in education and employment.
We ended the evening with a wonderful Somali meal organised by the ISC. Beth and Natasha learned to mix banana with the chicken and rice main meal and thoroughly enjoyed it.
We’re looking forward to planning more sessions like this!