The idea for Mobile Minds came from my personal experience and came about after years of supporting my daughter the best I could as she came through her education. With the struggles and the trauma of the exams she experienced and then in the last few years whilst undertaking a professional qualification two people where she worked at the time and who had gone through the same offered their help. Basically, they told her if she got stuck to give them a call and she did. They gave their support 20 minutes, 30 minutes at a time – that’s all it needed. So she had someone to ring when each problem came up and this made a massive difference. And I watched what was happening, and I said “What if everyone could have that same support?”
Just a phone call away.
And that was it.
What if everyone could have access to that same support service?
A cycle of learning and giving back
For people by people
Where did the idea come from for Mobile Minds?
Where the idea for Mobile Minds came from was from my own personal experience. Nicola my daughter studied at Durham University achieving a result of 2.1 in Business Studies. Nicola then went on to work in a bank in Luxemburg for two years after which she came back to study at Manchester Business School to gain her Honors Degree, achieving a Merit in International Business Studies. From there Nicola went on to work at a bank in the City of London. We thought the study years were over, until Nicola was given an opportunity, work had a budget and Nicola was asked what studies she would like to undertake. I am lead to believe this is normal for young professional people starting out in the City. It is seen as needed to further a career path and climb the ladder to achieving promotion at work.
CIMA The Chartered Institute of Management Accountancy was my daughter’s next venture. Embarking on a three and a half year professional qualification whilst holding down a full time job with long hours and the London commute. CIMA consisted of 17 exams and a journal to complete the course. Luckily, Nicola was exempt from 5 of the exams due to her studies at Durham University. The next journey of study began, and as luck would have it there were two male employees at the bank that introduced themselves to my daughter and told her should she ever have a problem with her studies she could ring them and they would be more than happy to give advice if she became stuck on something.
Nicola would use her annual leave coupled with study leave to come back home and do a block of intensive study before each exam. It was then that I saw what was happening, my daughter would be studying hard and then she would hit a wall, a mental block, she would be struggling to overcome a particular problem on her own. (It would never be at a normal daytime hour, it would always be more like 11pm). My daughter would pick up the mobile phone and ring one of the guys from work who had offered to help, she would then pace up and down the living room for 20 minutes, or 30 minutes talking through the problem, then off she would go again with her studies. Until the next mental block and the same would happen again. I started to ask myself “What if all students could have this access to help, this same service, get a mental block, ring for support, discuss, move on”. The convenience and the time saved from stressing would be amazing for people. It would stop self-doubt creeping in when a student is alone, stressed and feeling desperate.
