Experience of members in our team-Nicholas

This is a series where experience of members in the Ridge To Reef program will be posted. First up is Nicholas!

• What you learned

The project I’ve been organising under this internship has been hugely influential in 2 different ways

Firstly, it’s really encouraged me to explore and pick up many new online tolls, while learning to use them practically. This isn’t just learning to construct Zoom webinars, but includes brainstorming tools like Miro, or event management websites like Evenbrite. While some of these are hard to pick up initially, having a clear project and goal when using them really made it much easier to learn to use their various features effectively. Secondly, it has been a great experience in project management. Organising weekly catchups with the other interns, summarising progress to the TNC team and creating rundowns and folders for the event has been something that I initially overlooked, but it has given me valuable insight into heading a project from beginning to end, while learning to co-create and engage with other like-minded people in a productive manner.

• How you feel about this event so far

I’ve found this experience so far to be thoroughly inspiring. From taking inspiration from other similarly held online events, to meeting the TNC team and their Asia-Pacific Leadership Council to exploring new tools and software, I would say that it truly has been a trans-formative experience already and I hope that the outcome will equally be impactful for both participants and the judges

• If were to do this again, what would you change?

Although understandable given the current pandemic situation, I would have liked to engage personally with the focus of the pitching competition - oyster reefs. While extra effort has been made for the event to be interactive and engaging, being able to bring our participants (and myself) to the field would truly be a wonderful way to wrap up the event.