I'll be there for you...

It is the friendships that we formed that I want to focus on in this post. The majority of us attended the academy knowing one or two people who were lucky enough to be selected but left with 35 new friends (and that’s not including the wonderful coaches and staff who made the event possible). The friendships were forged initially in the group chat that started months ahead of the academy, a chat that was informative, amusing and prolific. My wife, in a nod to The Inbetweeners, christened them my “Google Friends” long before most of us had even met. They were developed in our teams of six innovators, with whom we would work closely in applying the concepts of Design Thinking to the issues that we brought with us, but subsequently they were cemented through various mixer activities, chats at mealtimes and the occasional (OK every night, until the wee small hours of the morning) visit to the pub.
Our friendships, as in all areas of life were stronger with some innovators than others, but I’d
happily be there for any of the cohort and suspect that they’d do the same for me if we needed help with our projects or with any aspect of our professional lives. This is born from a culture of having experienced the Innovator Academy together, but more than that, from having been selected in the first place for our passion, our skills and our Googley-ness. We were all different, but we shared a common vision and desire to improve education.
The academy has helped us all to appreciate the benefits of the skills that those around us possess, to understand that failure is just a step on the road to success and should be celebrated and that individually we have talents, but together we are great. All of these traits will need to be called upon at various times if we are to see our projects succeed.
The projects that this cohort is working on have the power to be genuinely transformational. From websites to board games; conferences to AI assistants, all of them are innovative, exciting and original. I look forward to seeing the directions that they take over the next 11 months before they are launched, and cannot wait to celebrate the successes of my new friends. As Kate Cheal, one of the academy coaches said in her brilliant spark session, “Oh the places we will go”.
So if you are interested in what everyone who attended describes as the best CPD experience of their careers, want to change the world of education or just want to make a bunch of new friends then I strongly recommend that you think about becoming a Google Certified Innovator. The experience is genuinely life-changing and you may even end up writing a post on this blog as a result of it. I look forward to reading about it, friend.
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