Education
Our two side-hustling guests David and Hannah met 18 months ago - David is the co-founder of Foundervine, a social enterprise that aims to help underestimated and underserved entrepreneurs to build and scale their businesses, such as the BAME community and women in tech. It was at one of Foundervine’s events that Hannah met the team and also her co-founder. Leveraging her expertise in coding and software engineering, Hannah joined forces with an experienced businesswoman to launch vrcalm, an uplifting virtual reality experience that aims to improve the quality of life of people with dementia. They’ve both enjoyed success with their ventures whilst working full-time as a management consultant and software developer respectively - both demanding careers - so how have they made it work? We hear about Hannah’s busiest month ever surviving on very little sleep (not recommended!) and how David found strength and motivation in his belief in Foundervine’s product. We also discuss other obstacles in the business world like gender, ethnicity, and broader inequality of opportunity, which could all impact someone’s success in getting an idea off the ground with an existential fear of failure, and in practical terms with limited time and other commitments. I learned so much from David and Hannah - turns out there are very many hours in the day to take advantage of, and I’m definitely guilty of spending a few too many of those parked in front of either the telly or the bar - and was inspired by their commitment to positively impacting the world around them. To find out more about the wonderful Foundervine and their mission, and to see if you’d like to attend one of their events for budding entrepreneurs, visit:www.foundervine.com And to find out more about how Hannah is using tech for good with her virtual reality platform (and to even try it out for yourself!), go to:www.vrcalm.co.uk For further reading: The Next Web - Research shows many women developers are stuck in junior-level roles:https://thenextweb.com/dd/2018/03/01/exclusive-research-shows-many-women-developers-stuck-junior-level-roles/HackerRank 2018 Women in Tech Report: https://research.hackerrank.com/women-in-tech/2018/STEMettes: https://stemettes.org/ Codefirst: Girls: https://www.codefirstgirls.org.uk/Interesting BBC article about ‘slashies’ and people who pursue multiple careers at the same time:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47984295