The idea
By 2023 the Slack community had grown past 2,000 members, 45+ events, 100+ speakers and chapters on two continents. The Fellowship was our answer to scaling it: recruit passionate members, one or two per discipline, and give them ownership of a stream.
Fellows ran streams across design, software engineering, product, data, founders, and content and marketing. Each fellow built their channel into a rich discussion space, assembled how-do-I-get-into-this-field guidance for career changers, and ran a regular programme of events, virtual and in person.
The deal for fellows
It was voluntary, around 2 to 4 hours a week, but far from unpaid in the ways that mattered:
- A learning and development budget for books, courses, whatever levelled them up
- Our full network for event speakers and project ideas
- Their personal brand in front of a newsletter audience of 5,000+
- Coaching sessions, and a safe space to test ideas with our support
Experience wasn't measured in years. If you'd mentored someone, guided career changers or simply knew what it took to succeed in your field, you could apply.
How it ran
Cohort 1 launched in 2023 across six streams. In 2024 we staggered the streams through the year, coding and data first, then product and design, each running for three months.
"Junaid and Yusra are both leaders in their field and excellent mentors and guides. By sharing concepts, projects and code with us, they inspired us in directions we could explore on our learning journeys." ML Club member, on the fellows who ran the machine learning stream