Why do we keep students so close to every step of the Future Amp product journey?

It was Frank Chimero who famously said: “People ignore design that ignores people”; and Paul Graham of Y Combinator who coined the mantra “Make something people want”.

From the very beginning, the Future Amp platform has always been designed with the end user right up front and centre: high school and early school leaver students across Australia.

In fact, before we even spun up our first scrappy wireframe, we knew that in order to design a high quality, best on market, data-driven career education product that would meet the needs of the end user, we had to keep them as close to the process as we could.

So from our first prototype development in 2019 and release in May 2020, to the V3 Future Amp career education and skills platform we have today, we have spent time with 100’s of students and let them shape our learning design, platform UX and UI and features. 

The only way you can do that is to adopt first principles of user-centred design so you gain deep understandings and insights about who will be using your product, and then incorporate those into product development and design. 

Ultimately, the users shape the value of your product.
If you’re not listening to them, no-one’s listening to you.

Madeleine Grummet, one of Future Amp’s founders, is qualified in Design Thinking with IDEO and the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (d.school), and so brought this five-stage UCD approach to the Future Amp product development process, alongside her co-founder Edwina Kolomanski who, along with Madeleine, holds a Master of Entrepreneurship from Melbourne Business School, which incorporated a Masters level Design Thinking unit.

By adopting first principles of USD, the co-founders and their development team have been able to step through the beautifully messy process of building, testing and learning from users across Australia - iterating the platform in a continuous loop across the product-life cycle. 

The team has also been fortunate to engage with an appointed Youth Advisory Board, who have worked closely with the founding team across the past 12 months.

Future Amp’s inaugural Youth Advisory Board members include:

Kai Lovel - Western Australia - Linkedin: Kai is a digital disruptor, founder, Gen Z expert and TEDx Speaker. He started his first company aged 12, and today works with organisations to amplify their business missions through digital strategies and Next Gen solutions.

Hannah Beder - NSW - Linkedin: Hannah is a computer scientist and the 2020 NSW Young Woman of the Year. Passionate about addressing the gender disparity in STEM, Hannah currently works as a Creative Technologist with Creatable, and holds teaching positions with UNSW, Code Like A Girl, and MoneyGirl.

Aqeel Camal - ACT - Linkedin: Aqeel is the Founder of Futures Collective powering young people with human creativity, empathy and courage, he’s also host of the Futures Collective Podcast, Executive Producer for TEDxYouth@Canberra and doing a double degree in Law and Arts at ANU.

Shae Potter - Queensland - Linkedin: Shae Potter is an interdisciplinary cyber security professional specialising in phishing, education and insider threat research. Her career path has taken her from Sunshine Beach High in regional Queensland to now Senior Consultant Insider Threat Analyst for Deloitte. She’s also an amazing STEM mentor for young women.

Aayushi Khillan - Victoria - Linkedin: Aayushi is a passionate youth advocate. Currently the only youth board member at the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, she’s also a Director of Bodyworks. Aayushi is currently completing her Biomedical degree, and is the recipient of the Chancellor's Scholarship at The University of Melbourne.

Nathaniel Diong - Victoria - Linkedin: Nathaniel was still in school when he launched Future Minds Network, which helps young people build job-ready entrepreneurial skills. Nathaniel has worked with 11,000+ youth, led hackathons with the United Nations and Techstars, and is one of AMP Foundation’s 2020 'Tomorrow Makers'.

The Future Amp product would not be where it is today without their collective support, great thinking and insights along the way, coupled with all of the students who have joined forums, answered surveys and participated in user pilots to help test and shape the platform user journey, features and 200+ hours of self-paced, industry-backed courses. 

We’re on an audacious mission to give every student in Australia the opportunity to thrive in the future workforce.

Key strategic priorities for Future Amp across 2022-2024 include:

a/ Scaling to provide 1 million secondary school students across Australia with understandings and applications of transferable, employability skills to equip them for the future of work

b/ Engaging with young people across Australia (13-25yrs) so they can start career education participation earlier to discover and uncover interests, passions and strengths

c/ Continuing to produce high-quality, work-based career education online learning programs and career exploration features designed to be used flexibly across the Australian education system in order to meet the needs of all students, and provide differentiated delivery models to learning cohorts

d/ Supporting educators with teaching and learning resources and course sequences mapped to the Australian Curriculum to enable careers education to be a priority and used in a cross-curricular approach in blended, classroom and asynchronous learner settings

e/ Increasing the reach of career education through sustainable engagement with schools, education providers, community partners and industries. 

At Future Amp we believe every student - no matter their born circumstance - deserves to have access to knowledge, career pathway choices and skill-building opportunities to give them the best chance of transitioning into employment pathways, and thriving in the newly complex, interconnected, every-changing - and globalised - world of work.

We also know that if you can’t see it, you can’t be it, and we are grateful to all the industry partners whose people and talent feature as Virtual Career Mentors in the platform, and Virtual Work Experience and Industry Pathways Learning Areas.

We are looking forward to continuing the journey with - and for - students across Australia.

Please reach out to our team if you would like to schedule a platform demo or learn more.

Future Amp is a global, industry-backed career education and employability skills platform connecting today's students with tomorrow's world of work.
Future Amp has just exited the Amazon Web Services and David Gonski-chaired Future Minds Accelerator.

To learn more about our national platform launch, bringing Future Amp to your school or educational institution or partnering with us, contact our team.