My name is Ed, I’m a programme lead at Real Ideas, founding member of Badge Nation, musician and creative, and I love to learn. I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. What I do know is that I want to have a badge for it!
I had about a million jobs growing up, on farms, building sites, sailing schools and in bars and restaurants. I bore easily and I struggled to find my place. Finally, in my late twenties, I became a youth worker. I love working with young people and I’ve worked extensively in employment pathways work, open youth work settings, targeted out of school provision and community development. More recently I spent 8 years delivering sexual health education and training in schools.
Since I started at Real Ideas, I’ve been focussed on connecting young people to businesses and finding employers who want to break the mould and find new ways to support young people’s skills and potential. I worked on the pilot introducing the Cities of Learning approach to digital badges and am a self-confessed ‘Badge nut!’
I love how badges can be used to recognise almost anything and I spend way too much time thinking about how to write the perfect badge. My absolute buzz is seeing young people showing off their Badge Nation badges on LinkedIn profiles and CVs. Seeing the Badge Nation badges get used in young people’s efforts to find work is the most nourishing thing!
Talk to me if you want to know anything about writing badges. I really like badges!
With Badge Nation you can easily create your own bespoke badges to acknowledge and reward the achievements of your students, volunteers, colleagues and teams.
Led by Real Ideas and Future Creators, all badges issued by Badge Nation are written using the Cities of Learning badge standard which is endorsed by City and Guilds and the RSA.
Badge Nation is a community of organisations formed to encourage, track, share, recognise, reward and motivate learning and ambition – all via digital badges.
Through Badge Nation you can easily create your own specific badges for your own students, colleagues, or teams.