Post-Bootcamp Adventures - Innovation Labs Party, and gaining recognition

 

Hello and welcome to this post-bootcamp blogpost documenting the celebration of the 1 year anniversary of the University of Suffolk Innovation Labs that took place on the 25th of July 2023, and the incredibly pleasant vibes that came along with it! 

I would like to point out that I have previously made a brief mention about this event on my social media profiles, but since you are coming to the blog to see the full event experiences, here we are! 

Event experience

It was 3:15pm at the Atrium Building and the doors into the building were left wide open. When I got there, the Prosecco's weren't ready, and there were just rows of clean, empty glasses sitting on the table outside the building. 

The building at the time was almost empty, with two participants that I recognised from the Bootcamp also sat inside. This also meant that I got to enjoy the secrets of the party - as the University staff were playing a video from one of the Innovation Labs members (who happened to be a Bootcamp participant as well), before moving on to snoop through some of the presentation material on the Innovation Labs. As well as a glimpse into some top-secret email material for two or three seconds.  

Not long after that, I also got the chance to see the cupcakes and birthday cakes being assembled, as well as some confetti being thrown around!

At around 3:45pm, I was then informed that the Prosecco's were ready and so I headed outside to get a non-alcoholic variant of the drink - meeting another Bootcamp acquaintance along the way, before returning to the building to take some sips. 

And by 4:00pm, the scene in the glasshouse began to change, as people suddenly started piling along for the event - I could count over 100 names on the badges that were on the table. There were many faces that I recognised - as some came from the FSB networking event that I went to the week prior to the celebrations, and plenty of University colleagues were also around as well.

At one point during the meet and greet, I was approached by one person who I didn't meet at the FSB networking event, happy to talk about what my business idea is all about. At one point, he suggested going off into software development by creating an AI fantasy map generator program, similar to the fantasy name generators that you could find plastered all over the Internet. 

And what's more, I got to know more people in the University who happen to know someone who is into fantasy mapping and Dungeons and Dragons - as intellectual property expert and lecturer Dr Ruth Flaherty also happened to be really fascinated by what I was doing in terms of my business idea.  

After that, it didn't take long for the meet and greet to end, as at 4:30pm, everyone was brought together for the quietest part of the celebrations, with introductions made by the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Business and Entrepreneurship, Professor Gurpreet Jagpal. Here, he was talking about how the Innovation Labs at the University came to fruition and what the Innovation Labs are all about. 

The "big boss" of Business Development, Emma Wakeling, then came to take over the stage to talk about the Innovation Labs statistics - and it was incredible to see the amount of success that the space has had, which included a 200% increase on the number of businesses being represented (that is based on pre-pandemic statistics mind you), an eye-watering 175% increase on meeting room bookings, as well as a large number of student-run businesses being supported by the network (10, to be exact). 

It is also interesting to see that two companies have since moved on from the Innovation Labs - having found larger office spaces to cater for their growing businesses.

Afterwards, Peter Basford, the director of the Innovation Labs network of business spaces, took center stage to talk about the future, such as his ambition to expand from the current offering of four sites to nine sites across the county of Suffolk (perfect for entrepreneur travellers!), as well as a target of linking up 10 businesses to University graduates. 

Also, he would discuss the different business development programmes that are on offer - the BGCN programme "Start, Build, Grow", "Creative East" for established arts businesses - due to start in September - as well as the ICET programme, delivering leadership and management courses. 

To finish off the round of talking, Aaron Riley, one of the Bootcamp participants and a digital marketing entrepreneur, presented a video about the successes that he's had with the Innovation Labs, as well as a message for University students and alumni who are thinking of starting a business (Do. It. Now) - and to make things more interesting, he sent the video over from the cliffs of Cornwall, some 300 miles (480km) away. It's a glimpse into the one of the upsides of being an entrepreneur or a freelancer - you can work on your business from wherever you want!

Once the video finished playing, the original plan was to present another Innovation Labs success story with a Stowmarket-based company - but as the person who runs the company wasn't about in the building, the plan was foiled! 

So it was time for people to go and do some more networking. Initially, for the first 15 minutes or so, most of the attendees remained indoors. During that time, Enterprise Officer Hannah Page came up to speak to me and we were chatting about how things have been getting on following the events of the 20th of July with Enterprise Manager Amy. 

After that, the Alumni Relations Manager, Kate Burgess went round to chat to me for the first time in 95 days - the primary aim of that conversation being to reconcile and to talk about where things are going to go on from there on my journey as a member of the University's Alumni community (and indeed things have moved on - stay tuned to the end of the post!). 

With the weather being nice and warm, it didn't take long until all of the attendees began to make their way outside... and for the next two hours, most of the people who came to the celebration were staying in their own delegations, talking about their own things. In my case, I was hanging around with Enterprise Officer Hannah and the Bootcamp group, being quizzed about maths and memory among other social enterprise tidbits along the way (did I not mention in the Bootcamp posts that the Volkert thought I had a good memory?). Generally, I found the aura and atmosphere among everybody to be very positive. 

And let's not forget the delicious pork burger too!

There was one little mishap though... as the clock was ticking closer to 7:00pm and I was getting ready to pack up and make preparations to go home, there was a big sign on the door telling people to be careful - the glasses that once used to contain Prosecco were smashed up on the floor! 

But to add some positivity to the story, the cupcakes were popular - with people randomly going back and forth from the building throughout the outdoor portion of the event, the cupcake holders were also demolished! 

I also managed to get a nice shot of the television screen being dismantled and wheeled off back to its original place by one of the Careers colleagues.

After I took those pictures, I left the building, got to say one final goodbye to the Bootcamp group and I was walking back home in the beautiful sunshine. 

The next day, I would go on an epic 17 mile (27.5km) adventure, walking from Ipswich to Felixstowe along the banks of the Orwell - a journey that took eight hours from start to finish. Perfect way to escape the entrepreneurial life for a moment, with amazing views of the port cranes everywhere you go.

And then the day after that, this happened with Kate...

Yeah... I am officially popular now.

Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed this little adventure into the depths of a University success story (again, it was a pleasure) and I shall see you next time working on some fantasy maps. 

Signing off now,

Jakub