SharpFutures

Last week we welcomed Skills4All and Year 9 students from Saint John Henry Newman Catholic College to The Sharp Project for a special day of creative digital storytelling. The students took part in a series of interactive stories and discussions and were tasked with reimaging and modernising their favourite classical stories. Each group presented their digital story and brought their ideas to life through music choices, photography, and storyboarding. Thank you to all the students for their enthusiasm and energy, and to Rubbi Bhogal-Wood at Skills4All for supporting SharpFutures in organising the day.

We have just finished the first phase of our year long Creative Digital Work Placement programme for a group of students from New Bridge Academy, ten weeks of workplace experience, located at The Sharp Project. The students have been exploring creative business ideas using web development tools, graphic design, and branding after a series of workshops helping them develop their work-ready skills in these key areas. To conclude their final steps of phase one, the students worked in small groups to deliver brand concepts plus plans for products & services. Each group did a great job at creating a logo, website, and brand identity then pitching their ideas to the SharpFutures team. We were very impressed with the level of research, attention to detail, and the original creativity of their ideas. The students were supported by the New Bridge on-site staff and the SharpFutures Discover team across the first part of the placement. A huge well done to Max, Ed, Jon, Waj, Harrison, Gian, and Oliver for their efforts this year and look forward to beginning the next phase of the work placement in January! 

Great to have you on board as a #SharpFuturesPOD member Harry Earnshaw 🙌

Congratulations to our brilliant #SharpFuturesPOD co-ordinator Deanna Turnbull for her award-winning weekend at 53two 👏

A couple weeks ago I got to do some logging for the ‘Beyond The Music: INSPIRE’ stage with SharpFutures 🗒️ The long list of panels were aimed at the next generation of creative talent, students, artists, content creators and aspiring professionals. All who want to learn about developing their careers in the music and creative industries. It was nice for me to refine my skills while going through the footage from the 2 day event, time coding and noting the key parts of it.

📢 NEW PUBLICATION: A portfolio of good practice for an inclusive economy: Trading for social good. The fourth in our portfolio series highlights the different ways our sector is creating a fairer and more inclusive economy in Greater Manchester by balancing profit with purpose.   Research from Social Enterprise UK states that there are around 6,812 social enterprises in Greater Manchester, creating around 127,600 jobs and generating £3.5bn in turnover. Of the £68 million they generate in profit, around £57 million is re-invested in their social missions.   Featured social businesses include Recycle-IT!, Society Support CIC, Gaydio, SharpFutures & STEAM Hubs and Pubs.   Read it here – https://lnkd.in/ek8h_yHb   This portfolio series has been produced on behalf of the Inclusive Economy working group of the Greater Manchester VCFSE Leadership Group, working towards the commitments of the VCSE Accord.

can’t believe i have been here almost a month now! thankyou to everyone at Jaywing for making me feel so welcome - so excited to continue working with you all over the next coming months :) thankyou to my marketing mentor Yasmin Pritchard for the opportunity to work on such exciting projects and to Jenny Bairstow (my fellow once content creative!) for letting me shadow your social media magic! 🤳 and to Josephine Steel for all your words of wisdom! from generating ideas in meetings to filming digital content, learning new softwares like Umbraco and HubSpot, learning all about the different teams in the agency, researching and analysing topics to writing articles and so much more… its been such a joy learning and developing my digital and media skills and I can’t wait to start my time in Organic Media next week with Beth Lenihan as a yorkshire girl, i look forward to many a more cups of tea (Yorkshire Tea always) with you all at @Jaywing ! 🫶 🫶 Thankyou SharpFutures and Channel 4 :)

Brilliant work Wesley Jobling - great to hear you've had such a good experience working as a Digital Researcher in Children's and Education at the BBC, a very successful #SharpFuturesPOD placement! Victoria Goodwin Deanna Turnbull

We enjoyed attending the Upriser Collective event at ITV today - it was great to hear about the project & it’s positive impact on schools in Salford, Cardiff, Leeds & Leith though their work with ITV & agencies such as THE LEITH AGENCY LIMITED plus the ambitions for futute work in Greater Manchester with Greater Manchester Combined Authority Thank you for the invite Jason Spencer 🙌

A great opportunity for all of us preparing to move forwards! Both Tom Clarke and Victoria Goodwin were wonderful to have in so I'd like to second the thanks to them and extend one to Kenneth Lau and Anna Whitehead as well for organising this.