We’re back in one of our favorite cities (hey Providence!), and VFA Training Camp is officially underway. The 2015 class is rolling deep this year, with 122 top-notch Fellows who are more than up to the challenge of our 5-week startup bootcamp. Week 1 was jam packed with guest speakers, world-class trainers, and high-intensity team challenges– and the Fellows proved they’re not here to mess around (except, of course, when a team challenge involves choreographed song and dance). Check out our recap video here and a breakdown of week 1 below!
https://vimeo.com/132108492
We kicked off the week with opening remarks by our Founder and CEO, Andrew Yang, and RI Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who both set an inspiring tone for the summer ahead. The week continued with a website redesign challenge, coding bootcamps, UI/UX training, and a series of stimulating guest lectures. And in the rare times they weren’t working away, the Fellows could be found playing pickup basketball, venturing down paths of poison ivy during ill-fated nature walks, or getting serious about their sugar cravings at our annual ice cream social. It was a “work hard, play a little, and then work a lot more” type of week.
The Trainings
In 2 days time, the Fellows tackled both front and back end development, gaining the skills and confidence needed to design and build a website from scratch; later in the week, they dove into the soft skills. We heard from:
- Flatiron School, who ran a serious coding training that required 20-30 hours of pre-work from our more technical Fellows
- Fellow-founded company Compass, who went through the ins and outs of using WordPress, Squarespace, and other tools for non-coders to create websites
- UI/UX expert Jennifer Smith, who set the Fellows on a path to creating user-friendly, and beautifully designed websites
- Emotional Intelligence expert Jarik Conrad taught us that there’s an objective science to looking inward and it’s a critical one to master
- Courtney Emerson, founder of All in Together, built on Jarik’s presentation and offered some concrete tips on how to create and manage a diverse company culture
- And finally, Sheri Smith of Indigo Project walked 150 of us through the results of her rigorous personality assessment (and there were definitely a few “a-ha” moments there)
The Challenge
If you can’t tell, we love learning around here, but we think it’s even better when learning is applied to solving real-world problems. That’s why we gave our 21 Fellow teams 72 hours to redesign and build the website of one of three Fellow-founded companies – Banza, Zest Tea, and NaturAll Club. They put the hard and soft skills accumulated throughout the week to work building impressive levels of team chemistry and even a few nearly flawless websites.
The Winner
After 70+ hours of work and more trips to Starbucks than anyone can remember, Team Madrone emerged as the winner of the 2015 Website Challenge. Check out their work and our other winners below!
- Banza (and overall winner*): Madrone – Cassie Coravos, Dennis Shih, Nick Baker, Amanda Tien, Tia Davis, Kasim Ahmad
- NaturAll Club: Ventureholics – Niki Chimberg, Dutch Waanders, Rafael De Armas, Christopher Kontes, Sophie Janaskie, Vanessa Paige
- Zest Tea: Tune Squad – Adele Zhang, Vinay Seshachellam, Jack Docal, Andrew Harris, Dextina Booker, Jesse Golomb
We know you want to follow along, so don’t forget to check us out on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or our #vfabootcamp live feed!