It was a bittersweet ending to our fourth ever Training Camp… an unbelievable summer of personal growth and professional learnings comes to a close, but a new chapter awaits for our class of 2015 Fellows. From building websites and sharpening their technical skills to personality assessments and emotional intelligence training, Fellows are heading to their cities equipped with the hard and soft skills needed to hit the ground running.
Before we sign off from Training Camp for the summer, let’s take a look back at our final week.
Finishing Strong
Branding 101: To kick off week 5, Bill Schley, C0-founder of BrandTeamSix and author of The Unstoppables dove into the nitty gritty of building and selling a brand. Schley stressed facts over feelings and the importance of telling stories with competitive claims. Senior Director of Mega-Brand, Michael Megalli talked about the continuous process of building a brand and how “you can never stop tinkering,” when working towards your vision.
Talent on Talent: Monday evening, 2015-ers crushed the stage during the highly anticipated talent show, which featured: the awesome aca-fellows acapella, a variety of acoustic musical performances, some impressive magic tricks, a chilling scary story and a comedic VFA infographic, among many others. Charlie Weikert showcased his hardcore yo-yo mastery and took home the grand prize: a free roundtrip to any VFA city.
Actionable advice: On Wednesday, our very own Mike Tarullo gave an incredibly practical run down of how to be a great startup employee and immediately add value to your organization.
Laying down the law: Later in the day we were joined by attorneys Niki Cubines and Allison Grein from RPL Law Firm to talk about appropriate ways Fellows can approach micro-inequities, mediations and settlement discussions in the workplace.
Final words of advice: Ben Kamens, lead developer and employee #4 at Khan Academy, ended the training on a great note as our final guest speaker. Kamens delivered a rich and pragmatic presentation on what it really means to add value to an organization and to the world.
Straight from the Red Carpet: Martha Ruiz is the Co-leader of PwC’s Oscar’s balloting team. She is one of two people in the world who knows the identities of Oscar winners before they are elected! Ruiz shared some stories about her own experience in this role and talked to Fellows about the process of gaining sponsorship.
The Last Challenge: Value Proposition
For their final challenge, Fellows were tasked with an individual project that would help add or create value for themselves and/or their communities and companies. 2015-ers Joel Kaplan and Nathan Robertson, for example, eased the transition into their new jobs at Indigo Project by creating promotion decks and detailed work agendas. On a completely different note, Jack Wise, a Fellow headed to Philly to work at VeryApt, is creating a free youth football camp to run in his spare time. We can’t wait to see these, and many other projects come to fruition over the next two years!
The Final Farewell
The week’s activities culminated in a final closing ceremony at the Providence Public Library. We recognized and celebrated the hard work and outstanding performance of the Fellows and their teams, including ten individuals who received a “Top 10 Fellow” award (featured below). The evening was bittersweet, as the newly formed community said their goodbyes and looked ahead to their new lives that await them.
Thanks again to our generous sponsors who help make Training Camp possible and have offered their support throughout the whole process!
