Part 1 of a Master Class with Joy Buolamwini

Have you ever had an idea, something you wanted to know, someone you wanted to meet, or some place you wanted go but didn’t know where to start?

At some point, we all reach the limits of our knowledge, resources, and connections. To move towards our goals we must dare to ask for what we aspire towards.

In this part of the ‘Why Not Dare?’ Master class, Joy takes a closer look into how you take a concept from an idea jotted down on a notepad, all the way through to a finished product by using the 3-S approach.

Find out more about how Joy’s determination and drive took her organizations from ideas, through to world changing innovations!

You can enroll in Joy's 'Why Not Dare?' course by clicking here 

To find out more about Joy, check out her Master Class Introduction

Dare to ask how you will change the world!

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‘Dare to Ask’: Part 1 of a Master Class with Joy Buolamwini

The way the we learn is constantly evolving, but as new tools that allow us to incorporate virtual and augmented reality into our learning become more accessible, we are entering a new age of learning. The Microsoft Hololens has just been released to developers and is a huge step forward in the augmented reality, but how will this impact our learning? We're going to take a look and find out.

After unboxing, the Hololens is very quick and easy to get set up. The adjustable straps make fitting the headset very quick and easy, and it is quite comfortable to wear. The only downsides are that the unit is still quite heavy and can be tough to wear for extended periods of time. There is a great tutorial to run through all of the basic commands to get everything set up and working according to your eyes and body size which takes around 15 minutes, and once you've completed that you're ready to start playing!

Although I was skeptical at first, the Hololens is very impressive. The range of view can be tough to adjust to however, once you get into using the device, you will quickly become used to the headset. When getting started, working in 15-20min blocks is the best way to allow your eyes to adjust to focussing on new objects appearing in your range of view. Working beyond this can put a strain on your eyes as they work to adjust to new objects appearing in your field of view, but after a few days you'll be a pro and happily wear the headset for extended periods of time.

Once you're all set up and using your Hololens, it quickly becomes easy to see why virtual reality, and augmented reality are going to be the way of the future. Imagine being able to train your employees on dangerous situations or simulating emergencies without ever putting anyone in danger. This is the future of training.

The immediate training impact will be seen in industries where there are many dangerous moving parts in the workplace that can be highly dangerous, but the classroom will also see huge improvements. Being able to place screens or interactive objects around a room will allow instructors to achieve a highly immersive learning experience without even being present in the room. Each student can have their own teacher to interact with their filed of view and guide them through exercises, allowing them to be completely absorbed in the learning experience.

This is an amazing breakthrough for the regular student, but it's even more of a breakthrough for students with special learning needs such as those with hearing impairments. All learners can now get the attention that they need, in the form that will help them the most.

The way that we communicate with each other is set to change forever too. Gone will be the days of video calls, as you can be standing in a room interacting with a person who is on the opposite side of the world with the use of a Hololens. Skype integration and collaboration is the beginning, but as you can see from some of the other demos below, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

At this stage, the Hololens has only been released as a developer version. As an entry point to the augmented reality market, this is mind blowing. A lot of the things that are still a touch clunky at this stage will very easily be resolved, and the first consumer versions of this product, which is yet to have a release date, is likely to be an affordable and eye-opening look into the future of human interaction that anyone can afford.

To watch some more of the Microsoft demos or the Hololens, check out these videos:

Why the Microsoft Hololens will change the way we learn

With the introduction of the Go1 Course Marketplace, you can now access over 100,000 new courses with the click of a button! Our marketplace is constantly growing, and you can now create and sell your own content for a profit so your training can pay for itself.

Selling courses with Go1 is easy. All you have to do to get started is sign up to the platform, and start creating your course. We have a number of tools to help creating your courses as simple as possible including Inline Editing, as well as an extensive User Manual to help guide you through the process.

There are two ways that you can sell courses through Go1 as shown below:

Anyone can create courses and sell them through using the Go1 platform for zero charge on sales if the courses are not listed in the Course Marketplace. This option means that you will be advertising your courses or selling through your own website (See How to Embed a Course in your website). There are no hidden fees and you will receive ALL revenue generated from selling your content. The only fee applicable to sales in this case is the credit card merchant fee (which is to Stripe and not Go1).

Users can create courses using the Go1 Platform and sell their content through the Course Marketplace. This allows other users to find your content through our search tools, and your courses will be advertised within the Go1 platform. There is a 30% fee when selling courses through the Go1 Course Marketplace.

You may also choose to incorporate both options which allows you to sell course through your own website as well as the course marketplace to get maximum exposure and reach a wider audience than using one option alone. Course Marketplace fees will only be applied to courses enrolled in through the marketplace.

If you have any questions around how to start selling your courses, or how to get started on the Go1 Platform, our Support Team is here to help guide you through the process. They are on hand to answer your questions 24 hours a day so don’t be scared to ask away!

Let your training start paying for itself and start selling courses today!

Sell courses through the Go1 Course Marketplace and let your training pay for itself!

You may often hear people say that attitude is more important than skills or experience, but is this really true? Does attitude really matter when applying for a job position or when you are trying to close a deal with your client? Which really gives a great impression to the client…? Is it attitude or skills?

As a freelancer who sends too many applications to win great opportunities online, I can attest that many employees consider attitude as to be just as important as a potential employee's’ skills and experience.

Why am I confident to say that? Despite of the skills and experience I put in my portfolio, many clients judge me by the cover letter I send upon application and how I was able to answer every question they asked. As clients read my cover letter and listening to my answers in interviews, they are reading my mind and getting ideas of who I really am.

The following questions are what most clients ask applicants and sometimes require them to include in their cover letter:

Why you consider yourself as a good fit for the position?

What can you contribute to make this project successful?

And can you finish this task on or before the due date?

When you look closer, most of these questions are basically depend on an employee’s attitude. If someone passes these first few questions, that would be the time that the employer will look into their portfolio and know more about the applicant’s skills and experience.

Why is it important to have a great attitude above skills and experience?

A person with a good attitude has range of thoughts regarding their employment. They are constantly looking for better approaches to problem solving, and ways to enhance a workplace that will benefit everyone within a company.
Individuals with good attitudes get a kick out of watching the after effects of their performance. They will demonstrate a high level of pride in what they accomplished, or how they figured out how to improve the environment around them.

A great example of a company with great culture is Zappos.

Tony Hiesh, Zappos CEO firmly stands that he wouldn’t hire stellar candidates if they didn’t align with the company’s culture, and he would fire those who don’t fit in. This Inc. video can tell you more about Tony Hiesh vision about company culture. Zappos is very well known in giving great customer experience. Company culture is well observed by the employees and it makes a chain reaction, great attitude among employees’ ended up working in a nice, peaceful environment and great relationship with their customers. No wonder why Zappos became one of the most successful businesses in the USA as it is being led by a man with a great attitude.

Many companies don’t mind spending money to provide quality training for their employees, in fact they believe that having skilled workers is a great investment, but in the end, culture fit employees are their assets.

Great attitude plays a huge part in securing new client. If you are involved in the sales process, a positive attitude could be your greatest asset in leaving a very great first impression with your new potential clients. Great products and services are what will get people interesting in your business, but it’s a positive attitude can determine whether customers will buy your product or not.

Having a positive attitude can allow you to form a bond with your audience which can prove to be especially critical in the business world. The last thing that people want to do is deal with a negative service provider, or someone that they don’t get along with. Entering any conversations with a positive attitude shows that you are able to handle their business in a professional manner, as well as being approachable and easy to deal with on a regular basis which could be the difference between winning or losing a new contract.

First impressions last, and set the tone for how you will act throughout your relationship. Making a good and positive impression could be the difference between expanding your business or missing out on that next big deal, so invest everything you can on that very first meeting to make the best impression possible, so that customers will remember you.

A good attitude is not only about closing deals; it might also lead to you landing your next big career opportunity. Like we’ve said, first impressions last, and when hiring new employees, this can play a major factor and your behavior in an interview will set the tone for how you will be performing over the coming months or years. Being open to learning new skills or working to develop your company can be very attractive to a potential employer and can really give your career a big push forward.
You attitude can open many doors in your life for both your career and your personal life, so next time you are meeting with someone, think of how coming in with a positive frame of mind will affect your experience and how much more you can get out of your interactions.

Why your attitude is just as important as your skills

Creating an interactive and engaging environment for your learners can be the key to running a successful online program. By building an interactive online learning community for your learners you are not only improving your course, but providing a much greater learning experience for everyone involved.

How to build a thriving online learning community

Just because you are running your learning program online, that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to consider building an online learning community. It’s common for the community aspect of online learning to be ignored as instructors are not seeing their students face to face on a daily basis, but one of the most important aspects in building a great program is forming an online learning community that can provide the help and support that a learner needs.

In this article we will be looking at 6 tips that will help you create an active and engaging online learning community.

Be present at the course site.
When the teacher or instructor is interacting with students in a traditional classroom setting, they are building a community in which all members feel that they can openly discuss the course content or ask questions. There is no reason why the same experience cannot take place in an online setting though. The key with establishing your online learning community is establishing some clear expectations at the beginning of your course or program. The best way to do this is to define some clear “Office Hours” for when you will be online. Depending on your subject, students, and other variables, this could be as simple as being online and ready to answer questions for a couple of 2-3 blocks every week. This can be invaluable for students and can provide them with the support that they need to excel in a course as opposed to just scraping through.


Get your students involved. 
At the beginning of a program, it’s always great to get students to start with providing a personal introduction to the group so that they can get to know more about each other, as well as letting you find out more about the personalities that you will be working with. Don’t forget to post an introduction yourself too! The types of things that are great to encourage students to share are info on professional experiences, personal information such as family, friends, and pets, as well as photos or short videos. Setting up a virtual classroom or group message board/chat rooms is also a great way for students to learn of each other when they have questions and allows them to form bonds that make the learning experience more enjoyable. Encourage use of a general forum for students to post and ask for help or assistance from each other through. Breaking the class up into smaller groups where students can mentor each other and assist in supporting their learning is also a great technique. It’s a similar approach to the more traditional study group, but with a modern twist.


Set expectations from the beginning. 
This best practice is one of the most important to take note of and can be the greatest help for you in the long term. Before you even begin your course set some clear expectation in the course details prior to enrollment, so that students understand how your interactions will be taking place. As an example, many instructors tell their students that they will receive a response to any question within 24 hours on weekdays, and leading up to exams periods there will be office hours’ periods held online where students can join in a conversation via live chat. A great way to reduce the workload of the instructor is to post responses to questions in a location for all learners to view and avoid answering the same questions over and over. Monitoring questions can also be handled by the students themselves, and when posted in a course message board or similar, it can be a great way for everyone to learn together, even with the instructor not being available. Online learning is just as intensive as classroom learning, and time to do the work needs to be scheduled and planned for, just as when you attend traditional classroom style classes. Being clear as to how much time is required on a weekly basis to keep up with the course will always keep stress levels down.


Don’t forget to interact with your students!
"How is the course going?" "Do you have any suggestions?" Talk to your students about the learning material. You’d be surprised how much you can improve a course based on the feedback you get from the people actually taking it. If you start this process early on in the program you also assist in helping provide a better learning experience for the people raising questions. Using this process will not only improve the learning experience for your current students, but over a longer period of time, and feedback, your program will be much more well-rounded and enjoyable for new enrollments.


Prepare posts that invite questions, discussions, and responses. 
When preparing posts for your communication with your learners, always think about what you’d like their reaction to be. Do you want them to ask for more information, have a discussion, or respond with their opinions/answers? You might use a discussion if you are looking to create an open question and answer forum, encourage critical or creative thinking, or reinforce domain or procedural processes. Once you have got the students engaged, begin to raise some follow-up questions. Why do you think that? What is your reasoning? Is there an alternative strategy? Get the students thinking about why they are giving you these answers and if they might have missed something. Let the students know how you’d like them to respond, e.g. a two-part response: What you liked or agreed with, and a follow-up like what you are you still curious about, etc. Working professionals are often overwhelmed with many problems, and providing options makes it easier to associate their learning with their work experience. Important: Don’t post YES/NO questions. Once you have an answer, that’s the end of the discussion and we want to keep our students active in discussion. Make sure that you are actively answer email, monitor discussions, post reminders, and hold online office hours at least four times every week so that your students get the help that they need.


Mix up the way that your students are learning. 
Identify and discuss the core concepts that are required in a course and then set the students to apply this learning to a complex project that encompasses these concepts. This technique allows the students to bring their own style of learning into the course through the project and will deeper ingrain the core messages that you are covering. Many online learners within professional programs are working professionals. Supporting learners with their professional goals that are closely linked to the performance goals of a course is a win-win for the learners individually and as a group. How do we do this? Offer opportunities to students to have options and choices in assignments.

With these tips you’ll have no problem getting your students interacting through their own online learning community and learning much faster and more effectively. Plus, it’s a whole lot more fun to have people to talk to when you are learning!

6 tips to build a thriving online learning community

In case you’re not familiar with Joy, she’s the founder of Code4Rights, an MIT Media Lab endeavor that introduces novices to making social impact mobile apps.

In this Master Class series, Joy will be sharing her journey as an entrepreneur and outlining 3 key imperatives that have enabled her to start organizations across 3 continents and secure support for new initiatives. This includes sharing the creation stories for endeavors including Zamrize - a Fulbright tech learning project, and Code4Rights - the first Rhodes Scholar service year initiative.

Before we jump into part one of this series, let’s find out a bit more about Joy!

We hope that in turn that these stories will challenge you to:

You can enroll in Joy's 'Why Not Dare?' course by clicking here

Introducing the 'Why Not Dare?' master class with Joy Buolamwini

The finalists for the First National Bank 2016 Business Innovation Awards have been announced, and we are excited to share that Go1 has been selected as one of the finalists!

These awards are set up to acknowledge the efforts of those entrepreneurs embracing many challenges to create world-class, innovative companies that continue to find unique ways of doing business.

Finalists are chosen based on the scalability of the business, and the business idea is as important as the business owner in terms of the assessment. Three selection criteria hold sway, development impact, business innovation, and the fit with FNB and Endeavor.

Nicole Sykes of FNB Business Strategic projects says, “We believe that innovation is a key component of business success, in terms of longevity, growth, and scalability. This is in line with our philosophy of creating a better world through high-quality job creation. This belief laid the foundation for the creation of the awards."

“Without innovation, no business can compete successfully, whether on a local or global stage. What we have seen with the awards is that both new and established businesses can benefit, because they are challenged to think bigger. This mindset can only benefit businesses and the overall economy in the long run.”

Go1 listed as FNB 2016 Business Innovation Award finalist

Setting expectations through a social media policy can benefit you and your team

Everyone is involved with some form of social media. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, we all spend some time every week checking up on our accounts and making sure our profiles remain up to date.

5 years ago it was common practice for a lot of businesses to have restrictions on their employees’ computers limiting their web access to avoid social media becoming in a distraction in the workplace. But as everyone has a mobile device full of social media applications at their fingertips, this is must now be dealt with head on in the form of a social media policy and training program.

This issue of distraction isn’t the only thing that should be covered in your policy, there are a number of areas that need to be addressed to protect your business from not only productivity and legal standpoints, but from a PR standpoint.

In this article will take a look at a few key areas that should be covered in your training and company legislation to avoid social media being the cause of problems in your company.

Setting expectations is one of the most important aspects of onboarding new employees. This sets the tone for what is expected of your new hires, and how they should conduct themselves in the workplace. The same goes for your social media policy.

If it is made clear that no social accounts are to be used outside of break periods throughout the day, your team members are aware that that should they be caught breaking the rules, they may be reprimanded and given an official warning for breaching workplace policy.

Before laying out any hard and fast rules about banning social media, have you considered how your team might be using it as a tool to help the company?

There are always exceptions to rules, and by using Twitter or LinkedIn you can actually find out a lot about a person or a company that you might be working with or looking to engage. Social media accounts can be a great tool for tracking down valuable information as well as communicating with your fan/user base and building your brand name via an online community.

If the expectation is set that the social tools should only be used if they are relating to a project, the team members are aware that if they breach the boundaries of the expectations that there could be consequences that could result in warning that in turn may lead to their dismissal from the company.

We’ve all seen this happen before. An employee goes on social media and says bad things about their company and/or team resulting in the termination of their contract. It’s becoming all too common at the moment, but this can be stopped with some basic social media training.

Training programs, which can consist of outlining the the key points in your social media policy, are a great way to let your team know how you expect them to represent your brand online, and what they can and cannot talk about. Depending on your company this may vary dramatically, however, sticking to a core set of guidelines when referring to your organization can make a huge difference in your online presence.

To avoid any issues or confusion in this area, it is important to outline a number of details so that employees know how to refer to the brand, and when they should be referring to the brand when promoting to their personal networks.

Links to reference (to blogs or websites)

Images/Logos to be used from an approved image library

Employees are a reflection of the company where they are at work or home, and that it’s very easy to trace back a single employees’ comments to a company. Bad example of this are easy to find, but we’re going to take a look at one case in particular in Australia where an employee had his contract terminated by his employer, only to have it reinstated by Fair Work Australia due to insufficient policy on the company’s behalf.

Mr Daniel Starr was dismissed from his employment with the Department of Human Services as a frontline Centrelink officer where he had worked for 21 years. He was dismissed for alleged “serious misconduct”, arising on a number of comments which he made on two social media sites over a period of some years. The Fair Work Commission Ordered Mr Starr’s reinstatement.

Daniel made comments on a public forum berating another user around incorrect processing times at Centrelink.

“Yes, it’s utterly disgraceful … I have never seen it this bad (not even close). I encourage every single person to complain to your local MP. Maybe that way they will get the hint that more help is required. Despite Flick’s ridiculous assertions in this thread that most claims are processed within 21 days to a month, I can tell you that they aren’t even close to the end of February processing at the moment.

It makes me embarrassed to work there, my heart genuinely goes out to all these kids who are simply struggling (to put it mildly) and there isn’t a damn thing those of us in the offices can do about it”

Although Daniel was in breach of his company’s social media contract, the policy only covered employees during ‘work hours’ meaning that due to the posts being published outside of the workplace, Daniel had his job reinstated.

The lesson here; employees represent your company at all times including when they are outside of work hours, and your social media policy should reflect this.

In an ideal world you should be able to trust your team to do the right thing when they are online, but unfortunately you can't do that when it comes to your business. While you should be able to trust your team to do the right thing on social media, having a policy in place eliminates any grey areas that can lead to messy dismissals and potential court appearances. By covering the basics of what and when employees can access and/or post to their social networks when speaking about their employer, you can eliminate risk, and set expectations which will only benefit everyone involved.

Why all businesses need a social media policy and training

Over the past few months the Go1 team have been working incredibly hard behind the scenes, and today we are very excited to be launching our new website and Course Marketplace!

Go1 is not only a place where you can create, track and provide training for your team, we are now providing an extensive Course Marketplace giving our users access to more that 25,000+ course from some of the best training organizations across the world including OpenSesame, E3Learning, ALERTforce and more!

We have built in some fantastic new search tools for the Course Marketplace allowing you to find the courses quickly and easily via our search box and filtering options. You can also browse courses by categories, ratings, take a look at some of our recommended courses.

The courses listed in our Marketplace range from free courses through to compliance courses created by accredited training providers around the world to ensure that no matter what your learning needs are, we’ve got you covered.

You can also sell your own courses through Go1!

Why not let your training pay for itself by selling your customized training programs in our Marketplace? You can set your own price, and it’s a great way to offset your training costs while providing some great programs for your team.

As a way to help support the local community Go1 will also now be donating all user fees from our Base user plan to charity. So now when you sign up you are not only getting some great learning tool, you are helping to support your local community.

If you have any questions about the Course Marketplace, please feel free to contact us by clicking here

Welcome to the new Go1 website and course marketplace!

Go1 co-founders Andrew Barnes and Chris Eigeland recently got the opportunity to sit down with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over breakfast to discuss all things Go1 and the Australian innovation boom!

Turnbull was in Brisbane local startup hub River City Labs to announce that the government would be pledging a further $15 million to the Australian startup sector, and met with a select group of local startups to discuss the improvements in the industry and highlight their growth to the greater business community.

Turnbull said the funding will be used to increase the number of incubators and accelerators, support existing programs, attract experts-in-residence to the country and give access to up to $500,000 in funding to these organizations.

“If we really want to boost the quality and output of our entrepreneurs we can’t ignore co-working,” he says.

“Most startups are in co-working spaces and don’t have access to the facilities on offer in incubators or accelerators. StartupAUS would like to see the program expanded to help co-working spaces fund accelerator-style opportunities to help their resident companies grow quickly.”

“If we want to build a thriving tech startup sector in Australia we’ll need more of these sorts of practical policy commitments as well as some ambitious, big picture thinking.”

Andrew and Chris had the opportunity to discuss how Go1 has been thriving across world after starting the business, and continuing to operate, out of Underwood just outside of Brisbane.

This news is music to the ears of startups all over Australia, as the government is providing more and more support to bring their innovative ideas to life and give them a chance to take their businesses worldwide.

We can't wait to see what the future holds for the Australian innovation sector!

Go1 co-founders meet with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

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