While completing my internship as a Community Analyst at Reload Greece, it’s been fantastic to see what a valuable experience the RG YEP ambassadors have had. So this week it was interesting to interview 2 University Ambassadors from 2017/18 RG Young Entrepreneurs Programme. These 2 interviews with Adam Amara, Ambassador at the University of Manchester (PhD Candidate Systems & Synthetic Biology – Student Venture Capitalist at Campus Capital) and Katerina Kanteraki from Imperial College London, (Program & Operations Manager at Metavallon V.C ), give an interesting insight into the ambassador experience.
What encouraged you to become an RG YEP ambassador? Which part engages you the most?
Adam: I wanted to take part in this adventure because I loved how RG combined entrepreneurship and positive social impact. The work done by RG to help develop local and international start-ups ecosystems is really exciting and I was happy to take part in this mission. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the start-up ecosystem while extending my network of entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, and meet some great people.
Katerina: I was RG YEP Ambassador for Imperial College London. Reload Greece gave me the perfect excuse to meet every entrepreneurially minded individual on campus, learn their inspiring story and share their experience with other Reloaders. This, in turn, gave me the opportunity to work alongside Imperial colleagues from various backgrounds and Imperial faculties during the RG YEP. I was impressed by how Ioanna and Anastasis, while doing their Post-doc and PhD at Imperial, dreamed about creating BioBot, a remotely controlled robotic lab. With YEP they worked on their business plan and managed to even win the Innovation Award.
What place do you think Reload Greece has at your university?
Adam: RG YEP is probably one of the rare programmes that give the opportunity to turn an early stage business idea into a potential business while having an impact in your home country. We have been able to engage not only with audiences from my university but it extended to people from all the universities in the city, but also young professional, and other entrepreneurship minded people.
Katerina: With RG CEO Effie Kyrtata being a graduate of Imperial’s Business School and Greece being Imperial’s 3rd largest alumni community worldwide, Greek students and alumni are of strategic priority and Reload Greece is at the heart of the College.
What was your main takeaway from your involvement in last year’s RG YEP? Would you recommend to someone to join this community?
Adam: My main takeaway was that it helped me connect locally and further to the startup ecosystem while learning the organisation skills around organising events and attracting people. Yes, I would absolutely recommend joining this amazing community!
Katerina: Main take: Effie Kyrtata, RG CEO’s apothegm: “If not now, when? If not us, then who? We are the unstoppable generation”. I highly recommend joining the strong RG community. I saw in practice how skills I developed, things I learned and the network I built through the RG events follow me until today embracing RG’s motto: “Once a Reloader always a Reloader”.
On average how many hours per week did you spend being an RG YEP Ambassador?
Adam: It depends a lot on how close you are from the event, and how much you want to dedicate, the more you do the more interesting things get. But on average about 3-4h.
Katerina: I started meeting, engaging people and building relationships a few months prior to Imperial’s initial RG YEP to build a strong network or people curious about entrepreneurship and build momentum. That was a minimum of 2-4 hours per week and much more prior to the RG YEP.
Does this role interest you? We’re looking for ambassadors for our next RG YEP programme, so please drop us a line at: veroniki.zerva@reloadgreece.com
We are looking for ambassadors in:
- UK: University of Manchester, Birmingham, UCL, Imperial College London, Oxford University
- Germany: LMU Ludwig, Humboldt University, Freie University
An interview by Alex Abdelaziz