SKILLSLANCE- AN UPDATE
Background: Skillslance is an online platform for young individuals to assist in the development of necessary skills that are essential to excel in their professional and academic life
THE PROGRESS:
Our main goal is to provide free-of-cost online sessions nation-wide. Last week, we brought our vision to life by conducting our first online session. To date, we have arranged and supervised ten sessions. Many people ask us about how we plan and arrange these sessions. Allow us to give you a short tour of the planning process:
The foremost priority is to research and find the topics that are relevant in today’s age. Once the team mutually agrees on the topic and its importance, the next step is to look around and find someone who is an expert in the chosen topic. It takes much time to provide the best-of-the-best to the audience, but it is worth the hard work. After the selection process is over, we have to schedule the sessions based on the team’s availability and volunteering. The time-line of all the sessions that were scheduled last week is given below:
A registration form was created to help people register themselves for the sessions they are interested in. This form helps us in determining the possible audience in each session. Before every session, reminder emails are sent to the people that registered. Along with this, we have created a group on Facebook by the name “SkillSlance community” where we post all the relevant information and announcements in case anyone missed the emails.
THE CHALLENGES:
How to reach the target audience? The race between time and the team was very tight. We were supposed to reach the targeted, relevant audience quickly, and it almost seemed impossible. However, the marketing team worked very hard and promoted the platform on different social media sites (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Snapchat, etc.). Thanks to the marketing team and their efforts, we managed to get 90+ registrations in one week.
How to find experts in the IT field? Finding volunteers that have a command of the basics of IT was a challenge. To overcome this challenge, we collaborated with SparkX. They were kind enough to lend us their skillful members.
CHANGE IN APPROACH:
- Recorded sessions: A fraction of people who registered could not attend the sessions due to unavoidable circumstances. At first, we were confused about how to cater to these people. We figured out that recording the live sessions is an effective strategy to help those who missed the session but are still willing to invest their time.
2. A sudden drop in the audience: The number of participants in each session suddenly dropped. Initially, we were baffled. However, we figured out that it’s better to hold the sessions for now as most of the students are busy with their exams.
THE IMPACT:
As soon as our platform on Instagram and Facebook pages, it got appreciated by several people and the audience started supporting it right away. We got successful with 100+ registrations within less than a week. Registration was taken through Google forms. We encouraged people to join our platform to stay updated about the live session, and its schedule.
The first three sessions were held on 27th January 2021, it started with Introduction and Road Map conducted by Maham Rasheel and Amna Shahid, the session gave a detailed message about our visions and missions as well as our volunteers and how we are going to regulate and take the platform from there onwards. The session was then on Adobe Illustrator (Volunteer: Ali Farzad) and C language by Maaz Munawer another member from Skillslance. These IT-related sessions were held in cooperation with SparkX, and we managed to get many engagements and audiences on both sessions.
We had Q&A sessions along with interactive discussions.
The next seven sessions were held on 30th January 2021, Freelancing held by Syed Anas Anwer team member- Skillslance and Tabish Siddiqui co-founder HashPotato- A tech Startup. They both held the session with great responsibility we happen to encounter many audience and encouragement, the next session was taken over by Sadia Haque for Art and Sketching it happens to be a fun interactive mostly casual session, actually left smiles on most of the audience, followed by G-suite by Fahad Farukh who managed to conduct a special yet informative session. Next, we Urooba Saleem for Digital Marketing herself and the people she brought along was extremely professional and created an informative and engaging environment at Skillslance. Photoshop held next to one by a team member at Skillslance, and he managed to pull off an exciting session about photoshop, and according to audience feedback, they happen to learn a lot from it. Last but not least, Aleezeh Fatima Hashmi conducted a phenomenal session with her excellent abilities of public speaking we got again got several engagements and appreciation for her thoughtful work at Skillslance.
Finally, on 3rd February 2021, we conducted our last three sessions for the month, started with Saad Fahim which was his continuity session from 30th January on MS office, according to audience feedback it was helpful, and they learned quite a lot in just two sessions. The day followed by Aisha Gul- Team member Skillslance on python language she managed to pull off the session with appreciable pace and made a tech-related topic quite enjoyable even for an audience of different fields of interest and subjects. Lastly, we had Amna Shahid- Team member Skillslance she had her session on Entrepreneurship Skills, she does have an interactive yet informative session appreciated by several audiences.
THE SUSTAINABILITY:
Since it’s an online platform, its sustainability is guaranteed. It’s easier for people to enroll themselves in an online session or course than going somewhere to attend them. We conducted a survey where we gathered opinions of people on online sessions vs physical classes. Most of the people preferred online sessions because of their feasibility.
The response we got on our sessions in the first week is brilliant. Considering this, we have decided to incorporate full courses into our action plan. There will be a maximum of 5 classes per course.
At Skillslance, we believe that sustainability depends upon our motivation and dedication towards the project. I can say this with 100% assurance that all of us are extraordinarily dedicated and passionate about the project and will not abandon it at any cost.
