Creating stronger connections between young people and the city’s digital industries is essential to building a thriving, inclusive tech ecosystem. Too often, young people don’t get a clear picture of the opportunities available in our sector, or the chance to demonstrate the creativity and problem-solving skills they can bring. We’re delighted to see Bravand continue creating these connections through Fresh Meet CIC’s Innovation Labs, where young people tackle real-world challenges while employers gain fresh perspectives from future talent. The first Social Innovation Lab brought together 70 learners from across Sheffield to tackle six challenges set by five organisations, supported by industry mentors. In this guest post, Bravand shares the story behind the event, the ideas generated and the impact it had on everyone involved.

This post was originally published on Bravand’s blog and is shared with permission. Photo: Adele Hetherington, Lotus Academy

On Monday 7 July, Discovery by Scrannery at Pennine Five in Sheffield hosted something we’ve been working on behind the scenes for a while: Fresh Meet CIC’s newest core offer, Innovation Labs.

This first Lab – the Social Innovation Lab – saw 70 learners from four Sheffield education and training settings come together to work on six live Challenge Briefs from five organisations, mentored throughout by people from industry.

Real problems, not case studies

The whole premise of the Lab was simple: give young people genuine, unsolved problems from real organisations, not manufactured exercises. Five organisations trusted us with live briefs:

Friends of Stannington Park

Newly registered as an official charity, but with no website, no logo, and a Facebook page carrying the whole weight of getting the word out. The challenge: reach two different audiences with two different messages – “look what we built in your park” and “we’re a charity now, come and be part of it.”

South Yorkshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy

A live public consultation closing 31 July, already backed by a short survey and a £100 prize draw – but most young people don’t know it exists yet. The challenge: create content made by young people, for young people, good enough to stop the scroll and get someone to actually give up five minutes to take part.

Sheffield Wednesday Community Programme

Being connected to the football club gets people through the door, but leaves most people assuming it’s just about coaching sessions – when the charity actually runs programmes across health, youth work, employability, inclusion and even a Community College. The challenge: land two messages – “we do so much more than football” and “we’re a charity, and your support changes lives.”

Lindley Educational Trust

Genuinely good work, but scattered across PDFs and spreadsheets with no single place for interest to land, and hard to find or trust online – including through the AI tools people increasingly search with instead of Google. The challenge: work out how to get prospective students to find, trust and choose the Trust, and what needs to happen behind the scenes so real interest doesn’t fall through the cracks.

Harmony Works Sheffield

Harmony Works brought two briefs to the table.

Booking system

A mix of rehearsal rooms, studios and performance spaces, all wildly different, being booked by everyone from daily regulars to one-off community groups, with an operations team who have to make sense of it all on a Monday morning. The challenge wasn’t to design a finished system, but a set of rules and principles: who gets priority and why, how a room “sells” itself to someone deciding whether to book it, and how it would actually work day to day.

Digital presence

Getting the tone right for a website and social channels that feel genuinely inclusive and exciting, aimed first at children and young people rather than generic “music lovers,” while navigating new restrictions on under-16s’ social media use.

How it landed

Brian Kitson, CEO of Lindley Educational Trust, said it was refreshing to be part of something so innovative – the young people’s ideas were strong enough that he’s already been in touch with one setting about working with some of their learners to develop and build on the initial ideas that came up with.

Vanessa Bizzell of Friends of Stannington Park said it was fascinating to see fresh approaches to a problem her team has been living with, from people who simply think about it differently.

Sophie Milner of Harmony Works called it insightful, helpful and inspiring.

The energy in the room came through in almost every comment afterwards. Tom Helliwell, a Teacher of Media at UTC Sheffield City Centre, said his students threw themselves into problem-solving and idea generation, and that between a huge appetite for lunch and being pushed to think big, the outcomes were excellent.

Christina Staniforth of Pennine Five said her favourite line of the day, overheard on the plaza, was simply: “this food was banging.”

Adele Hetherington, Assistant Headteacher at Lotus Academy, said she felt privileged to be part of it and is already looking forward to the next one.

Hannah Chaplin, a Computing teacher at UTC Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park, said her students were buzzing – and asking to do it again.

Off the back of the launch post, feedback included young people saying the standout takeaway was building presentation skills and confidence standing up in front of a room, along with the rare chance to be in the same space as a genuine range of industry mentors.

What the numbers say

We also ran a short feedback survey with everyone on the day. Of the responses collected:

• 20 out of 23 said they’d learned something new.
• 21 out of 23 said they’d recommend Fresh Meet Innovation Labs to someone else.
• Most also said the day gave them a clearer sense of what the world of work actually involves.

The written comments were just as useful, and just as honest.

Several people said the energy created by the setup and the opening intro was brilliant, and one attendee said the breakout space made a real difference for their students, particularly for those with SEND – worth carrying into future venues. Another highlighted how thoughtful it was to have a separate quiet room available for learners more sensitive to noise or distraction.

Not everyone who came filled in feedback, and what we got back wasn’t uniformly glowing – which is exactly what we wanted, because it’s the useful stuff.

The clearest theme was practical: the room got loud during group work and presentations, and several people said they struggled to hear or see clearly – something we’ll fix with better acoustics and, likely, microphones next time.

Close behind that: brief-holders and mentors wanted clearer guidance in advance on what their role actually was on the day, and a few felt the Challenge Briefs themselves could be tighter and more specific.

There was also a consistent thread around time – more time with the brief-holder, more time to think before jumping to ideas – and a sense that a shorter, punchier opening would get everyone into the actual task faster.

All of it’s going straight into how we plan the next one.

Thank you

None of this happens without a lot of people giving their time, trust, and support. A heartfelt thank you from Jilly and me to everyone who made the day such a success – this simply wouldn’t have happened without you.

Our venue and hospitality sponsors:

• Discovery by Scrannery – Dave King, and Josh, Isabella and the Chef, who looked after us brilliantly
• Pennine Five // Iconic Sheffield Offices and RBH Properties – Christina Staniforth and Oscar Barnes

Our food & drink sponsors:

• Differentis
• South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority

The organisations who trusted us with live Challenge Briefs:

• Friends of Stannington Park – Vanessa Bizzell
• Harmony Works Sheffield – Sophie Milner and Emily Pieters
• Lindley Educational Trust – Brian Kitson
• Sheffield Wednesday Community Programme – Matt Pierre
• South Yorkshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy – Anna Parkin and Kris Mackay FIPM

Our four education and training settings, and their brilliant learners:

• Lotus Academy – Adele Hetherington
• Sheaf Training – Ellie Cook and Rob McPherson
• UTC Sheffield City Centre – Tom Helliwell, Ellen Smith and Mark Cocken
• UTC Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park – Hannah Chaplin, Ifatgar Ahmed, Stephen Tomkins and Jessica Stevenson

Our industry mentors, who gave their time and expertise across the whole day:

• Alicia Carrion Plaza
• Declan Fisher
• Felix Barr
• Phil Turner
• Rebecca Millard
• Steph Ashmore
• Thom Webb
• Victoria Clarke Brown CDir

And thanks to Sam Barber of Sheaf Training, who did a brilliant job capturing the day on camera – more of those photos to follow shortly.

Arigatou, Asante, Dhanvaad, Dziękuję, Obrigado, Shukran, Shukriya – however you say it, thank you. You should all be proud of what was achieved.

What’s Next: rolling this out across South Yorkshire

The response to the first Lab has been a real vote of confidence, and it’s already turning into real, confirmed momentum.

Our next Lab is confirmed. Off the back of a great call this week with Phil Turner at unLTD, we’ll be running the second Innovation Lab at the unLTD Business Expo at Magna on Wednesday 14 October.

And a call with NHS England / NHS Improvement this week confirmed they’re on board for an “Analogue to Digital” healthcare-themed Innovation Lab in the new year.

There’s more in the pipeline too. We’ve got calls lined up over the next couple of weeks with Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park, Barnsley Council’s Great Childhoods Ambition, and RNN Group to talk about future Labs – alongside wider conversations already under way with Barnsley College, Nexus Multi Academy Trust, The Sheffield College, and Vulcan to the Sky about rolling this out further across South Yorkshire’s boroughs.

It’s not just us following up, either. Brian Kitson at Lindley Educational Trust has already been in touch with UTC to explore doing follow-up work with the groups his brief worked with, with a catch-up planned for September to work out how to make it happen – exactly the kind of ripple effect we intend these Labs to create.

Want to get involved in the next Lab?

We’re already on the hunt for Challenge Briefs, mentors, and sponsors for our next Lab, which we can now confirm will take place as part of unLTD’s Business Expo on 14 October 2026. If that sounds like something you or your organisation wants in on, drop me a line: ‍ross@bravand.com | ‍07799 885 950.