Online training provider, Engage, launched free live training for creative entrepreneurs by world-class educators at the Innovation Centre in Derry~Londonderry today, 19 February. Engage has been developed to help people follow their passion and will offer classes in the areas of photography, videography, cinematography, art, design, music, crafts and business. These workshops are free to watch live via the Engage website with the option to purchase a download of the course if missed or if people would like to re-watch.
Founder Donal Doherty comes from a background in marketing and PR before changing career five years ago to become a photographer. When developing his business he listened to the experts and they have helped him to create a market leading photography studio. While he loved watching live workshops it was difficult to participate due to the time difference and sometimes the content shared was not 100% relevant to his business. Donal knew that some of the best trainers he’d heard from are based in Europe and wished there was a world-wide resource that blended their ideas and strategies with those of their US counterparts. So two years ago he began working to bring those experts together to help people to succeed in their creative businesses.
The expansion of Engage signifies a significant investment and the company hopes to crowd source the funding on Kickstarter for the developments. With an initial target of £15,000 the company hopes to far exceed this amount raised to cover some of the productions costs – the video, audio, live-chat and technical team.
Donal is excited to launch the new format and he explains what’s in store:
“We will offer thousands of people around the world a chance to learn from leading educators for free and to interact and shape the learning experience live. People can also apply to be in the in-person studio audience and we’ll have both delegates and trainers flying in from around the world for the courses. To an extent this all rests on the success of our Kickstarter campaign which we hope will fund 16 courses in 2015, with the plan to offer a course each week in 2016. Not only will this help us to create employment in the local economy, but we’re hoping to be part of the sea change of native digital companies accessing global markets.”
