The focus of this week was to put my research from last week into good use and start acquiring new guests for the Edinburgh Global Entrepreneurial Leaders (GEL) summit.
Given that the GEL is a unique educational experience, it is very relevant to school pupils and educators. WildHearts have a great deal of experience in working with schools through their Micro-Tyco for schools programme and the GEL is the perfect platform for maintain engagement with schools post Micro-Tyco. On this front, my task was to sort through past Micro-Tyco records and compile them into a single database, this made it simple to see which schools have taken part in the competition over the years and in turn the school representatives to invite. For some cases the details were not complete and research had to be conducted through school handbooks and local authority websites.
Once I had a list of potential attendees I drafted a number of invitation emails. These invitations were tailored to organisation type and separate versions of the invitation were produced for high schools, primary schools and commercial businesses. I sent these drafts to my supervisor and after some feedback and editorial changes the invitations were ready to send out.
The invitations were distributed by email via the use of a mail merge, a function of Microsoft Office that allows you to create and send multiple copies of an email with minor changes in each copy such as recipient name and email address. After distributing the invitation it was not long before I started getting responses.
Further tasks for this week included reaching out to schools already signed up for the summit, gathering the names of the representatives that will be attending from each specific school, offering additional places to schools with increased demand and looking into various Boston based companies as part of my research for the Boston GEL. I also proof read and made suggestions for the GEL brochure which will be distributed on the event days.
At the halfway-point of my internship I feel that I have learnt a great deal and managed to make some worthwhile contributions to the organisation. I am confident that the second half of this placement will be just as valuable and I look forward to working on a new range of tasks.