Eskwelabs 2022 Anniversary Progress Report: A Thank You Letter to the Team
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Eskwelabs 2022 Anniversary Progress Report: A Thank You Letter to the Team

Cheers to the dream team. Truly, team work makes the dream work!

The People Behind the Program

Each person in the Eskwelabs community, from learner to partner, is important to the team. 

Whether they enroll in the Data Science Fellowship, Data Analytics Bootcamp, Data Literacy Skillscourse; become a partner under Innovate with Data or our Data Talent Partnership; or work with us to bring a Learning Sprint to their organization, the cheers and congratulations can be heard leaping off of our Discord work channels. 

For many of our learners, the path to our programs has not always been linear. With the multitude of resources available and personalities accessible online, how does one even begin to sort through it all?

“It was a jungle! There is an abundance of resources online, and of course just like everyone else, I would go online and search for the best platform to learn data science for free. Even though I was able to go through some of the popular platforms to learn data science, it was difficult to maintain the consistency of learning because there was no solid structure or curriculum, and so I would often switch to the next thing I saw.” —Basty V., Data Science Fellowship Cohort 8

Having 19 cohorts for our data science, data analytics, and data engineering programs also meant hosting 19 orientations, 19 graduations, and more homeroom sessions and socials than we can count. Imagine the 800+ alumni we have in our data literacy program! How many events—from orientations to graduations—does this add up to!

It really takes a lot of manpower to power through all of these with care and intentionality.

Pre-pandemic, you could count the number of teammates in Eskwelabs with just two hands. Now we’ve more than doubled in team size since our last Anniversary Progress Report. 

This blog post is dedicated to the hardworking humans of Eskwelabs. It is a miracle to have this many people aligned with the mission of democratizing skills education to help people thrive in the future of work.

Cheers to our past, present, and future teammates!

Behind the scenes of growing an agile Eskwelabs team

“People-first” is one of our core values, and there is no power quite like manpower.

Adapting or redesigning the way teams work is definitely one of the action steps an organization can take in their own digital transformation process. A big change that happened in Eskwelabs in the past year is our movement towards the agile way of working. 

Here are some thoughts from different teams:

  • Data Analytics Bootcamp team: “Working in an agile manner can get us closer to achieving our goal of scaling the bootcamps. And with scaling comes the need for automated learner roadmaps, feedback loops, and report-generation; adaptable student handbooks; a robust mentor and instructor hiring process; and a standardized student experience.”
  • Data Science Fellowship team: “We also need to be mindful of setting limitations regarding which ideas to prototype and experiment on. What works best to get the best quality? How do we make it simple? How might we continuously iterate on it?”
  • Management Systems team: “We learned the importance of cross-functional alignment. Having unified OKRs per squad was helpful in preventing the team from working in silos, especially since there was the layer of people being in different chapters, too. This increased productivity with constant communication and collaboration cross-functionally.”

While we work hard in Eskwelabs, our growing team also enjoys “playing hard” via our always heartwarming, oftentimes goofy, and sometimes serious traditions.

No one cares in the same way that Eskwelabs cares

There are also opportunities to be “resting hard” in Eskwelabs. Since our 2021 Anniversary Progress Report, we have experimented with adding a company MindYou subscription to one of the many unique perks of being in the team. MindYou works “to provide accessible and affordable psychological support for large working communities and individuals from anywhere at any time.” 

MindYou and Eskwelabs are the two Philippine start-ups that received catalytic funding and support from the Australian government in 2021. Even back then, it seemed like our fates had been intertwined. 

This experiment with a company mental health subscription to MindYou was timely back then. According to a Forbes Future of Work article in March 2022, the predictions for mental health in the workplace for 2022-2023 are mixed. While conversations will get kickstarted on decreasing stigma and increasing focused support, mental health concerns like anxiety and depression will continue to be widespread.

In 2020, mental health companies and startups brought in only $2.3 billion across 258 deals, compared to $5.5 billion across 324 deals in 2021. It’s predicted that this trend will continue in 2022.

This is one example of how data influences the choices that Data Enablers make for their companies. For some executives, maybe it’s data on customer behavior that will compel them to reevaluate their marketing efforts. For others, maybe it’s employee engagement data that moves decision makers to incorporate new technologies into their HR practices. It will vary per company.

Thank you, Eskwelabs team

We close this blog post and the year 2022 with a poem aptly titled,

“Team Work” by Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959).

It’s all very well to have courage and skill

And it’s fine to be counted a star,

But the single deed with its touch of thrill

Doesn’t tell the man you are;

For there’s no lone hand in the game we play,

We must work to a bigger scheme,

And the thing that counts in the world to-day

Is, How do you pull with the team?

They may sound your praise and call you great,

They may single you out for fame,

But you must work with your running mate

Or you’ll never win the game;

Oh, never the work of life is done

By the man with a selfish dream,

For the battle is lost or the battle is won

By the spirit of the team.

You may think it fine to be praised for skill,

But a greater thing to do

Is to set your mind and set your will

On the goal that’s just in view;

It’s helping your fellowman to score

When his chances hopeless seem;

Its forgetting self till the game is o’r

And fighting for the team.

Join the Eskwelabs team

You can visit our Careers page here to learn about our Mentor position. We are determined to grow our mentor pool even larger in the coming years!