Bohdana Shkin, Online Academy of Jewelry Art project.
Big Idea Challenge 2019 finalist in the Creative category.
I came up with the idea of an online jewellery school when I was studying at the Department of Metal at the Lviv National Academy of Arts. Yes, I was studying jewellery at the university, but very briefly and devoted little time to it. My idea was to launch an online education that would help people to master this profession, no matter their location is.
My participation in the Big Idea Challenge began with a workshop on pitch preparation. At the workshop I learned about the pitch format for my idea, created a text and practiced presenting it. We shot a video pitch at the beginning of the training and at the end of it – the difference was significant. After that, I have no problem with expressing myself in one minute.
To participate in the competition, I had to record a video pitch in English, and the translation of the pitch was the most difficult task for me, the rest of the recording was quite simple. In total, I took me one day to record a pitch.
When I found out that I became a creative category winner, I understood that my idea was interesting and important not only for me. After my victory I became more confident in my project and wanted to implement it.
No doubts, such competitions as Big Idea Challenge provide an opportunity to level up self-presentation skills and are very useful for self-development. I highly recommend future participants to attend a workshop on pitching, pay attention to the quality of sound and picture to make a video pitch interesting to watch. It is also important to clearly speak and be self-confident, because a video presentation is of enormous importance in this case.
After the competition, I received mentoring support from the UK expert and the opportunity to undergo additional training from the British Council, which was very useful for networking and project development.