Networking meet up
Path and modules
Innovation, Future Narratives
| Target | Age | Duration | Objective |
|---|---|---|---|
| alumni & active community members | all ages (25+) | 2 hours | Networking event |
The kick-off meeting with female innovators and fabricademy alumni took place in 3rd June, 2021, via zoom call. The guidelines below explains how this event was organized and serve as a base for replication with your own community. Click the link below to watch the recording of this meeting:
Activity's goals¶
The kick-off meeting combined the two frist activities suggested as an initial step on the innovation path: networking meet-up & career mapping. Therefore the main objectives of this meeting were:
- Create a networking opportunity for the participants. Each woman was asked to prepare one slide with information about herself so she could have a moment to present herself and get to know the other participants;
- Map out the current job position / career path these women considered themselves to be at. This was done via the online co-creation tool Miro, each participant was asked to create post-its and plot themselves in the board.
Preparation and materials¶
- Invite your close and active community members or alumni that have taken interesting development journeys, the ones that created their own paths or are starting to do so!
- We suggest to mix the group you invite: invite alumni of different years or community members that are part of different groups and don’t often meet, to create new networks and connections organically.
- Organize an evening for all of you to come together, you can also do this with multiple labs at the same time, this creates an even more diverse group.
- Ask them to prepare a few slides each, to introduce themselves on the day of the online or in-person event.
- Prep a career mapping canvas on miro, you can use the one below or make your own based on your own experience and intuition, please share your new version ;)
Shemakes' Lab Ziphouse, conducted a Fashion Brunch event where it focused on networking and facilitated "offline" self mapping event. You can check the guidelines for this activity below:
Initial Career mapping¶
Stemming from the interviews, we developed a map of the common career paths taken by the alumni, within the clothing and textile sector, we identified four macro-areas: academia and research, culture and society, art, and the industry.
Hereunder you can find a list of the areas and paths that came up with, feel inspired to explore an area you have not, or add new possibilities to your personal list.
Macro areas Textile & Clothing sector¶
- Academia & Research
- Culture & Society
- Art, Performance & Textile Arts
- Industry / Design & Production
- Industry / Technologies
- Industry / Communications & Coordination
Macro areas of career path¶
- Researcher / Educator
- Designer
- Artist & Content curators
- Entrepreneur
- Consultant
- Manager
Paths¶
- Teacher Educator
- Researcher in Academia
- Independent researcher
- Independent designer
- Wearable tech pioneer
- Industry Innovator
- Sustainability advocate
- Heritage Explorer
- Textile / Performance / Material Artist
- Advocate for change
- Lab director / social entrepreneur
- Independent Innovator
- Expert / Mentor
- Manager / Coordinator
Mapping Results¶
When it comes to possible careers and job routes, the Lab’s network is vast and varies both in the sectors that the women innovators are currently working on, as well as the multiple career paths they pursue. This shows the need of a wide and multi directional innovation path to support different profiles
The first mapping didn’t show a significant concentration in one specific type of career or sector Most of the innovators plot themselves in multiple places in the chart, this also confirms that such interdisciplinary approach as that of Fabricademy is aligned with the innovators reality and with future job formats, that might no longer fit under one single job description/ sector/ linear career.
First Career Mapping Results from Shemakes Core Labs