Hello! I’m Ben Cole, Head of Strategic Projects and Future Space at Loughborough University London. Future Space was designed to support our student community, and support the innovators and inventors of the future (YOU).

Our goal is to connect you to your future, help you with your goals, your career, and your entrepreneurial ideas while simultaneously reflecting on your individual skills. Our team will help you set goals and access new experiences by offering you a broad range of exciting opportunities.

We have previously partnered with some of the largest organisations in the UK such as BT Sport, Octagon and Santander – just to name a few. We provide work insight projects, Collaborative Projects and post study work opportunities as well as being mentors/ friends providing thought provoking conversations and endless support! Our mission is to encourage entrepreneurship, innovation, inventions and collaborations within our broadly talented and skilled student community. The Future Space team has 11 member – meet the team:

Careers

Boost your career experience with our dynamic duo, the Careers Consultants. Our highly experienced careers consultants offer 1-2-1’s, workshops, virtual assessment centres, CV advice, mock interviews and skills sessions.

Nadine Lewis – Nadine has worked in careers related roles for the past ten years. She was a Careers Consultant at the University of East London and The University of Law where she supported undergraduates and postgraduates from Business, Law, Health, Sport and Bioscience programmes.

Laura Hooke – Specializing in psychometric assessment for career planning and in job selection, Laura is a professionally qualified career consultant with over 30 years of experience of working with university students, graduates, adults and school leavers.

Enterprise

Meet our two tycoons – Our Student Enterprise Adviser and Entrepreneur in Residence. Our student and graduate enterprise team support students, doctoral researchers, and graduates to build their entrepreneurial skills (and businesses) by offering 1-2-1 appointments, peer to peer idea development sessions, funding, workshops, inspiring talks, business advice and skills sessions.

Hayley Jones – Having previously worked in the banking industry, Hayley has proved herself advocate of innovation, enterprise and start-ups, and being able to influence enterprise is her passion. Hayley has widely supported the development of start-up businesses and enterprise in Higher Education for the past three years.

Sal Malik – Dr Salman Malik (is an ex-scientist, an advisory board member and multi award-winning entrepreneur. Following his PhD at University College London (UCL), he solely founded a biotech startup and was also awarded a prestigious Enterprise Fellowship from The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE).

Partnerships

Competition makes us faster – collaboration makes us better! Our partnerships team supporting Collaborate activities, guest lectures, Collaborative Doctoral Training Centres, dissertation partnerships and post study opportunities.

Ashley Gray – Ashley manages operations on the Collaborative Project, a pioneering inter-disciplinary master’s module where students work collaboratively on a project set by organisations. Working alongside colleagues within the Stakeholder Management and Employability Team, Ashley creatively enables enterprise collaboration in the student setting.

Benjamin Dobie – With over 15 years’ experience in competitive collaborative public funding competitions, and having acquired over €250m in grant funding, Ben links organisations with the strategic path of growth for both campuses.

A connected campus

Working to create a connected campus, locally, nationally and internationally, the pair below are at the forefront of creating these links. They provide major interdisciplinary research project work and manage work with local schools and colleges.

Jennie Wong – With over 10 years of experience conceptualising and managing global disability sport and education programmes, Jennie recently joined the Future Space Team to manage the Global Disability Innovation Hub‘s project – Overcoming Stigma though Paralympic Sport. Prior to joining us, Jennie led the education team at the International Paralympic Committee for the past 6 years where she built the foundation for I’mPOSSIBLE – the Paralympic Movement’s school-based education programme.

China Anya – China works with in with local schools to inform students about all of the different areas associated with university life and hosts activities throughout the year inviting students to join us on campus and to try subjects first hand through a range of exciting workshops, activities and lectures.

Stakeholder Engagement and Employability

Dan and Grace collectively complete all of our data work, co-ordinate projects, our LEARN presence and marketing our activities to the student network while supporting projects, workshops and researchers.

Dan Robinson – Dan is an integral part of the team and is responsible for the coordination, delivery and development of our Future Space – with a focus on support systems, operational logistics and team strategy.

Grace Baird – Grace works as the Digital Skills Project Assistant at Loughborough University London ensuring the project runs effectively whilst supporting students and organisations. To find out more about the Future Space team and their activities, please visit our website.

---

To find out more about the Future Space team and their activities, please visit our website.