In partnership with:

Reach and inspire the right audience
As part of Accenture’s International Women’s Day efforts, ThinkNation was tasked to inspire and engage young women from across the UK to tackle the BIG question, “How far can you go?” in tech.
We produced empowering short “call to apply” video messages as well as working with our young people partners in tech, education and creative industries.
These efforts inspired young women from diverse communities and backgrounds to apply, with the final 11 selected to participate in the day-long speaker bootcamp and evening event, where they’d present their final “How far can you go?” stories in front of a live audience.
Lock down inspirational thought leaders as mentors
Mentors were recruited from Accenture to help the young women build confidence and inspire others through the sharing of their personal stories, ideas and possible solutions to the question “How far can you go?”.
A total of 12 passionate and inspiring mentors – men and women from across Accenture, all at senior and director level – were selected, prepped and assigned their mentees. ThinkNation supported the mentors and mentees in calls, meetings and provided each of them with a detailed brief well ahead of the event.
Design and run an intensive Bootcamp
ThinkNation speaker Bootcamps are, by design very focused. And this one was no different. It kicked off at 9am and over the next seven hours, the mentors and young women followed a “Create, Critique, Iterate” framework and structure to research, write, produce and rehearse their 5-10 minute talks.
We also added two external mentors into the mix – UK Rally Driver, Catie Munnings, and Manchester grime rapper, producer and radio DJ, Envy. They supported the young women to help build confidence and prepare for delivering their stories in front of the public audience later that evening. This was especially important as some of the young women had never spoken in public before, let alone pulled together a talk of any kind.
Set the talks free…
Hosted by Billie JD Porter, the “How far can you go?” event opened it’s doors to the general public, tech leaders and young people. The event kicked off with a very special spoken word performance by Envy, inspiring by the big question “How far can you go?” followed by talks given by the young women and Q&A sessions.
Impact:
- 100% of participants would take part in another ThinkNation
- 100% of participants would recommend ThinkNation
- 95% of participants rated ThinkNation experience as ‘excellent’
Who took part?
<Mentor>
<Speaker>
Alexandra Wajayanti
Student
<Mentor>
Amanda Leacy
Accenture Global HR Managing Director – Inclusion and Diversity
<Speaker>
Fatima Kissi Traore
Application Developer
<Advisory Board>
Ameenah Begum
Product Design Student
<Mentor>
Annie Gardner
Managing Director - Accenture
<Speaker>
<Mentor>
<Host>
<Mentor>
<Speaker>
Emma Deacon
Technologist
<Speaker>
<Advisory Board>
<Mentor>
Mary Firth
Head of Content & Marketing Services at Accenture Interactive
<Mentor>
<Mentor>
Lara Longhurst
SuccessFactors & SAP HCM UKI Lead at Accenture
<Mentor>
<Mentor>
<Mentor>
Mark Insch
Managing Director Energy, Utilities, Chemicals and Natural Resources at Accenture
@Markinsch<Mentor>