The Future founder program is aimed to have a social impact on Brazilians lives, transforming anyone, anywhere into innovators. The fellows were selected through a rigorous process in which, we subscribed to the website, filled out the form, and schedule an interview, in order to know if we had the mindset to become an innovator and/or improve their creative thoughts.
We are 8 FutureFounder Fellows with different backgrounds, from business and innovation management to international relations, which made us an amazing team to work with Design Thinking. The program was structured according to the development of our creative thoughts. We began learning about the organizations, and the differences between a standard organization and a startup. After that, we dug into recognizing problems and opportunities developing a strategic analysis with SWOT and STEEPLE analysis.
We create our digital portfolios in which we posted our analysis (you can see mine by clicking here). After that, we started working on our communication skills, improving our professionalism in English, and also in our Linkedin profile. Another point in which we developed our communication skills was when we had to work in Hackathon groups. The hackathon activity was to solve a current Brazil problem using the Design Thinking approach, which you can also see in my portfolio .
The week after we dug in the Design Thinking steps and within our group we developed the solution and we presented it in a Pitch Deck format in the DemoDay. All information about our group (Unmeat Team) and our Pitch you can find under my portfolio (here).
With our digital portfolios ready, the pitch presented and having reflected on our process until now, it was time for our Match Day, in which the fellows were selected to do an interview with startups. The Match Day happened on June 23rd and the fellows were placed to do 15 min interviews with the startups and show them what we have done this past 3 weeks and what we’ve learned.
During the interviews, I spoke about the most valuable takeaway from this program, which was self-learning. I improved a lot my self-learning skills when compared to what I was used to in Academia. I also learned how to use feedback in my favor, learning and growing with my mistakes, improving myself, and dedicating myself to have a good performance in a fast-paced environment.
If I could give any advice for someone starting this path with FutureFounder, would be to be brave! It is ok to fail, to feel frustrated and overwhelmed, because with this comes the rewarding, which is feeling proud of what you have done, seeing opportunities, improving your skills, meeting new people, and building network connections.
FutureFounder allowed me to see opportunities everywhere
Thank you!
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