We believe that everyone deserves a chance to discover and nurture their skills and capabilities and pursue high value careers - regardless of their background, education, or location.
miFuture connects young people with opportunities to build future skills, every day. How they do that has changed over time, but the goal remains the same!
How it Started
miFuture's story began with Gemma Hallett, a former international rugby player and teacher, who was frustrated by the lack of support and guidance for their learners that were not going to university.
She saw how many of them were unsure of their options, confused by the system, or blinkered by the alternatives to uni that are abundantly available - but that they just don't know about .
Gemma decided to take action and create a solution that would help not just her learners, but thousands of others like them. She left her teaching career and self-funded the development of miFuture, an app co-created with input from more than 2500 school leavers in south Wales. By going to source and listening to the needs, wants, and aspirations of young people, she rallied collaborators and built a network, including schools, charities, employers, and mentors, to provide relevant and meaningful opportunities for Welsh Gen Z.
With all this input the miFuture app was born; a 'Tinder for Careers' style app where school leavers swipe through earning, learning, training and volunteering positions close by. Young people explore opportunities in emerging and growth sectors such as digital, creative, green, construction, tech and engineering, and get recommendations based on their interests, goals, and location. The app raises awareness of high valued careers along with the aspirations of thousands of school leavers.
🤝Stakeholders and Industry Collaborations
miFuture collaborates closely with various stakeholders, including The Prince’s Trust, Cardiff Commitment, Caerphilly Borough Council, People and Work unit, Cardiff Digital Youth Service, and Cardiff and Vale College. These partnerships allow miFuture to gain valuable insights into the needs and challenges faced by others working to address this issue. Together, we believe we can achieve more.
Gemma engages directly with employers in growth and priority sectors. Her deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities led her to spearhead the UK’s first skills strategy for Finance, Innovation, and Technology. Additionally, she crafted the inaugural skills strategy for the FinTech cluster in Wales. Gemma also chairs a skills working group that includes the CCR Regional Skills Partnership, tech start-ups, scale-ups, corporates, and education providers.
This wealth of knowledge not only informs miFuture’s latest digital solution but also provides keen insights into the soft and technical skills that employers require both now and in the future.
How it's going
In 2023, miFuture decided to sunset the app in order in order to focus resources on the core business and to innovate further; to co-create a solution that not only sign posts but improves their most valuable asset, their skill sets.
'Skills progression' will be the focus of miFuture's newest innovation, due to launch in Spring 2025 (But more on this at another time🤫).
Whilst the tech team is squirreling away building the next digital iteration of miFuture, the brand continues to go from strength to strength, with so much activity underway;
📲 The social media team curate and post the best experiences, courses, and tutorials to help young people future-proof their career and develop the skills that employers really want. The best one's are posted on @miFutureHQ on Instagram, X, Facebook and LinkedIn every week day, with a unique link to literally start building the skills employers want.
✍️ Self described as 'obsessed with this', Gemma regularly shares her finding about the future of work, growth and emerging sectors, future fit skills and useful 'how to' guides through the miFuture blog her daily tweets , which offer stark insights into GenZ, skills and the future of work.
🤝 Seen as Gen Z experts and thought leaders in this space, miFuture's exec team often provide consultancy for businesses, education and local authorities, to understand the future workforce. These stakeholders have a crucial role to play in unlocking talent in the next generation.
😃 Delivering inspiring talks on the 'alternatives to Uni' for schools and colleges is a big part of miFuture's offering and excites the team; "nothing is more energising for our team than speaking directly to a room full of young people and getting them fired up about the future of work, their local growth sectors, and all the options that are aligned with unlocking higher valued careers" said Gemma.
In the past 7 years miFuture has built more than an app, they've built a community; a network of like-minded people and organisations who are passionate about improving the future workforce, wanting to make an impact on young people not going to university, and dedicated to unlocking prosperous careers through innovative solutions and collaborations.
We are a values-driven brand, and as such we believe that impact, innovation, integrity and inclusion is how we will make a positive difference to the lives of young people, and also our team, our business, and our community. We may have been here 7 years, but it feel like we are just getting started.
Gemma Hallett, miFuture Founder
If you feel aligned to the work that the miFuture team is doing, make contact through [email protected] and explore ways of working together.