What is Namla’s education about?
Namla is an educational start-up that aims to support social scientists to practice sitting in spaces of design, intervention and affect in order to increase the visibility and engagement of social science outside of the academic space. The two founders – Corina and Rosalie – both work in the applied anthropology space, and on a daily basis negotiate the tensions between what they were taught in university (being ‘objective’, observing, nuancing) with what they are asked to do in the workplace (giving advice, starting programs, developing products). At Namla we believe that this tension can be resolved, through the iterative processes that have been developed in the field of design. In the Namla bootcamp, participants go through a small project from beginning to end, they design the project, they do the research, they design interventions and present them to the stakeholder. The aim here is twofold:
- showing a possible path for the participant to resolve tensions and produce effect in their work,
- support partner organizations and institutions to approach & solve wicked problems in new ways.
Why is this interesting for your students and graduates?
Academic institutions, especially in the social sciences and particularly in anthropology, have for a while now seen a discrepancy between their graduates and the job market they will enter into. Namla is a low stakes way to offer your students and graduates access to practical experience, so that they can figure out what kind of job suits them, and to help them explain what their skills are in a job interview.
How are the bootcamps funded?
We receive questions from organisations, whether governmental, non-governmental or commercial ones. They can pay for a bootcamp revolving around their question. In that case, participation is free for participants and they will know beforehand what the question is. We safeguard the best interest of both the organisation and the participants to find out-of-the-box solutions, that meet the needs of real people.
Other times, we partner with public institutions, apply for research grants, or even an academic institution hires us in the context of a programme. We have experience in tailor-making programmes for your specific institutional needs, and are happy to do so again.