With applications for our MA programs now open, we decided to do what we do best by reconnecting with our alumni to give you a valuable insight into their transformational experiences. We asked our highly accomplished participants three simple yet fully loaded questions to stimulate answers that will hopefully inspire you to take the next step in your development journey. And who knows, maybe you’ll be taking your next steps towards transformation with us at Hyper Island soon enough!
Robin Bini Schneider
Robin Bini Schneider, Design Lead @ Globant, London.
What triggered your adventure with Hyper Island?
After completing a degree in Graphic Design and Art Direction, I developed a love-hate relationship with design. I always wondered how to become more functional than aesthetic. I wanted a tangible impact on improving and simplifying peoples’ lives when it came to using digital services.
How did Hyper Island support your transformation?
Hyper Island equipped me with an arsenal of tools and knowledge to expand my skill set in parallel directions and evolve into my next role. I maintained design as my core expertise but branched out into experience and service design, as well as product and strategy. I gained confidence in talking and working in any business context with hands-on practice throughout the course. I also understood how to manage and safeguard the human side of the business. The latter being the most precious lesson in my current role.
What is your current professional situation looking like?
I work full-time for a fairly big tech and design company called Globant. My official role is Design Lead. Day-to-day work includes managing a team of UI, UX, and service designers, as well as hands-on design work. I move between UX, service, organization design and strategy, and remote facilitation, or remote culture building—especially after the pandemic started. I’m also helping to build our sustainability practice; something I’m proud and passionate about.
A heartfelt thank you to Hyper Island!
Marvan Shamma
Marvan Shamma, Managing Partner @ U+ MENA
What triggered your adventure with Hyper Island?
Prior to Hyper Island, I was working as Client Service Director at Leagas Delaney in Prague, leading Skoda Auto’s digital communications. It was a great, yet very challenging job. At that time, I’d heard about Hyper Island from a friend of mine who mentioned some of the projects he’d been part of. And I loved the sound of it! What attracted me was the great portfolios of their students at that time. I also felt the need to do something new in my life, and Hyper fitted that need perfectly! I had a passion to continue learning after graduating as an AI engineer, and felt I needed to add some digital/innovation tools to my skill set.
How did Hyper Island support your transformation?
Hyper Island was a life-changing experience for me as it exceeded my expectations in many aspects.
I loved it there and I’m still drawing from my leanings to this day. On the other hand, Hyper Island inspired me to look at education from a new point of view.
What is your current professional situation looking like?
I am now part of a venture studio called U+, which is helping Fortune 1000 companies turn ideas into successful (digital) products. I’m also Co-Founder of Veracity Protocol where I use my Hyper Island methodology almost every day. The team at U+ applies design thinking and other lean approaches to designing ventures. Hence, why Hyper is a great add on to my way of thinking!
Lujan Martinez Cima
Lujan Martinez Cima, R&D Team Coach @ Atlassian
What triggered your adventure with Hyper Island?
I actually found out about Hyper Island through my dad who’s involved in media branding. He had heard about a Swedish school that was being called the “Harvard of digital”. My husband, Ulrik, actually applied and gained a place on the Digital Creative program in Stockholm, while I stayed working in Argentina. Once there, he put me in touch with other students and, after speaking to them, I had no doubts about joining Ulrik.
I found out about the program in Manchester, and both the curriculum and the length of the program fit my needs perfectly. Learning by doing has become my mantra since then.
How did Hyper Island support your transformation?
I was lucky enough to apply for a graduate internship in Sydney with friends I’d met at Hyper Island Stockholm after I finished the program in Manchester. That graduate internship turned into a full-time job at M&C Saatchi Sydney where I realized for the first time how powerful the Hyper Island tools were.
Looking back, I’d say that Hyper Island helped me gain the confidence to be who I am.
I believe skills such as resilience, feedback, continuous improvement and learning, and authenticity, are fundamental leadership skills that all individuals should learn about and practice regularly. I know it has helped me be more successful whenever I set a new goal.
What is your current professional situation looking like?
I’m currently working at Atlassian as a Team Coach where my purpose is to continuously improve how the company works. We do this to nurture a high performing organization, so that Atlassian can live internally by what it states externally: unleashing the potential of our teams.
We work at different ‘levels’ of the organization and we focus on two broad areas: people and process. Atlassian wants to become more customer-centred, so we’re developing a standardized customer-centred framework to create more consistency across the organization and enabling teams to work more effectively together. As Team Coaches, we also oversee all of R&D, which enables us to have a birds-eye view on system barriers that may be impeding internal teams work effectively. We create strategies and partner with other internal teams to create visibility over these problems and find ways of addressing them too.
Hanna Elin
Hanna Elin, Senior Service Designer @Nordea, Copenhagen.
What triggered your adventure with Hyper Island?
I had been working as a commercials and music video director for many years and I was beginning to feel I needed a change.
“I have always had a drive to learn new things, and I was curious about innovation and disruptive technologies.”
How did Hyper Island support your transformation?
Hyper Island gave me—apart from new tools, great friends and a lot of theory and practice—a new perspective.
What is your current professional situation looking like?
Straight after Hyper Island I went to Hong Kong and set up a service design agency with two friends I had met at Hyper, Matilde and Henry. It was a fantastic experience in every way. I am currently working as Senior Service Designer for a big Scandinavian bank. I use my learnings from Hyper Island mixed in with my experiences from the film and advertising world every day. Thank you Hyper!
