“Encouraging and supporting young people to become partners in, and share responsibility for, the opportunities, learning processes and decision-making structures which affect their own and other people’s lives and environments” is one of the Principles and Purposes of Youth Work in Wales.
Here, CWVYS members miFuture share an insight into the process that lead to their creation, and the importance of good participation.
Background
miFuture makes the careers process fit for Generation Z, by simplifying the way school leavers and the organisations that want young talent connect. They saw no value in duplicating existing platforms which did not cater to school leavers for whom university is not a priority.
miFuture was co-created with 2500 school leavers in RCT, Caerphilly and Cardiff, here’s a little snapshot of that process and why good participation is key to solving issues successfully, in the words of founder and CEO Gemma Hallet;
The problem: School leavers going to university have UCAS and UniFrog to support seamless transition, those not going to university are pretty much left to it. I wanted to fix that.
The solution: I initially went to young people with a ‘Facebook for careers’ style platform, which would house loads of resources and activities etc. Something a teacher would benefit from, not what excites a digital native school leaver that does everything on their smartphone.
The realisation: I soon realised that even though they were excited that we were solving the problem and resonated with our ‘why’, the solution wasn’t appealing. Just another over engineered approach forced upon them (top down approach).
The pivot: I realised that if I didn’t start over with young people leading the way on what the solution would be, it will never make the impact I’d want it to make. Technology was developing rapidly and we moved quickly from version one an Online Dashboard, to version 2 an online dashboard supported by an app, to our product now which scrapped the whole online presence and launched a native app that is personally curated and has similar functions to dating app models. All driven and functionality now created by school leavers for school leavers.
The future: School leavers feedback and concern for the future sees us now exploring new ground and pushing innovation, in the form of AI powered interview preparation and digital Skill Bursts – nudging young people towards-better skilled higher-paid futures.
The result: A solution co-created with school leavers for school leavers, where our audience was not just represented but were leaders at each stage of our build and growth.
To learn more, visit https://www.mifuture.co.uk/