In 2023, mentoring will take place between the 20th February and 17th March (subject to change). Mentors will be notified during this period when their pitches are up on their dashboard via our new mentoring platform.
You will be sent an email by one of The B!G Idea team to make sure you know that your student pitches have been uploaded. We are working hard behind the scenes to make sure we get the best matches for our student teams (and Mentors!). Thanks for your patience.
Mentoring in February 2023 – Approx 2-3 Hours
In late February/early March (during the mentoring window), Mentors will be sent about 3-5 projects through their dashboards to review, feedback and advise on. Our 2022 B!G Mentors spent half a day at most (total and cumulative) working through their projects. With your personal dashboard, the where and the when is up to you.
Judging in May – Approx 1-2 Hours
The second phase will take place the first week in May. B!G Mentors can put on their judging hats as they receive their students’ final B!G Ideas. Lots of support is provided for you at this point, including a kick-off online session for Mentors at the end of April. This is an exciting time to see how your support has contributed to the students’ experience of The B!G Idea process and their incredible B!G Ideas.
Showcase on Friday 8th May, 2023 → ½ day (morning)
This is a totally optional but amazing opportunity to bring the B!G community together and recognise the achievements of our superstar students! With inspirational speakers, lots of awards and the chance to celebrate the B!G Impact you’ve supported, it’s definitely one for the diary.
Our mission is to empower the next generation to tackle big, local to global challenges using creative thinking. We believe that EVERY student deserves to learn the skills to unlock their inner potential!
Our programme gives all schools from across the education sector, from rural, urban and voluntary schools, as well as ETB and DEIS schools, access to innovative methodologies. The only way we can achieve our mission is to keep the programme FREE for students, schools and parents. The benefits of creativity are for everyone. We need your help to do this.
Your contribution of €200 to join the B!G Community will support one student with all the learning equipment they need: unique programme material and custom teacher support material. This helps us facilitate expert mentorship to students and support a small percentage of the roll out of The B!G Idea programme in 2023.
Your contribution to The B!G Community to support one student can be paid in one lump sum or monthly over 10 months to spread out the cost. (Please note that as all funds will be immediately allocated to our students, your payment contract is full and binding and payable even if cancelled during this period).
We understand that life sometimes gets in the way and you may not be able to take part in all mentoring and judging activities during the programme. If this situation does occur and you need to cancel once signed up, you will continue to be charged up until the end of the 10-month period. Your contribution will directly support student spaces on the programme and once committed it cannot be refunded. To cancel any aspect of your commitment to the programme, mentors@thebigidea.ie.
Each student and teacher receives all the learning materials required when they start the programme. They contain all the elements they need to help them on this creative learning journey. One of the founding principles of The B!G Idea is inclusivity. We want to give the opportunity to every student to have access to the equipment they need so they can experience The B!G Idea equally.
Our Think B!G classroom packs (packed with love) include:
Lots! Take a look below…
The B!G Idea team gets a payment ping and once you’re approved, you’ll get an email from us to say a B!G welcome (check your spam for this)! Once you click YES to confirm your email preferences we can contact you.
When we check you are not an alien, it’s a done deal – you’re officially part of the B!G mentor gang!
We’d love to be at the top of your inbox but our welcome emails can sometimes go astray – rule of thumb, always check your junk mail! Still can’t find it then just get in touch on mentors@thebigidea.ie and we can get it sorted.
Our students work in project teams and typically our B!G Mentors will work on 3-5 pitches and projects giving written feedback, advice and general support to students through our bespoke mentoring platform.
You will control everything through your own dashboard but you are never on your own. You will be part of a community of awesome people and The B!G Idea team is never too far – just an email or a message away!
We have designed a super simple mentoring system with lots of tips on how best to support students through The B!G Idea process. We have guidelines on moving through the various grading bands and how best to
communicate feedback to our superstar students.
And what’s more, we have a new Mentor App for our B!G Mentors to connect. We will also host Mentor meet- ups throughout the programme, where you can meet The B!G Idea team and other B!G Mentors, get some guidance on how to mentor and ask any questions you might have. We love a good Q&A! All access details will be on your personal B!G Mentor dashboard.
It’s a really easy process. We’ll send you a number of projects to review and grade, and you can simply log into your B!G Mentor dashboard and work on them as and when you want (there will be a deadline which we will let you know about). We’ll provide tips, great project examples and a really easy to use grading system. Don’t worry if you have never judged before! You can even select a potential B!G winner and leave some words of wisdom and support for our students!
Nope – you can just be a Mentor or wear both hats – up to you! You have the control over how much you get involved and you can change your settings at any time on your personal B!G Idea dashboard.
This year we hope to add even more opportunities for Mentors to support schools; lots of Mentors from 2022 really wanted this option. Watch this space as we will be working with schools to see if this can happen.
Sure, we would love that. In fact, why not get the whole team involved, we have lots of mentoring teams in our 2023 programme! Mentoring the next generation, empowering them with in-demand creative skills, helping them to create impactful projects locally and globally – how could they not want to get involved?
There are oodles of benefits to your company in getting employees involved – employee engagement, social impact, learning and personal development and of course, empowering the next generation of employees with in-demand skills!
Get in touch with us on mentors@thebigidea.ie and let us know your company name, who to talk to (or even better introduce us) and we can take it from there.
In one word…yes! At The B!G Idea we like to define a B!G Mentor as anyone who has professional experience in creative or critical thinking and problem solving, who wants to support and empower students across Ireland to develop these vital skills.
You’ll get all the additional support you need along the way. You know what they say, there’s no ‘I’ in team and that’s what we are here at The B!G Idea! We are lucky to have people from a range of industries and roles, from recent graduates right up to CEO level!
If you’re still unsure and want to have a chat with one of the team, just drop us a line on mentors@thebigidea.ie or follow us on social media to sign up for one of our B!G Hello events when they go live and come and meet the team!
Absolutely! We are looking for a diverse range of individuals from all sectors across Ireland and beyond. We know that creativity and innovation are embedded in many industries and growing. Our B!G Mentors are creatives, educators, consultants, designers, entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, innovators in the not-for-profit world, tech innovators and much more!
The diversity of our Mentor community is something we actively seek out as it shows students just how important these new skills that they are learning are to every single person, role and company.
The more the merrier! If they want to invest in the next generation and impart their creativity and innovation wisdom to our students, we welcome them with open arms.
We have B!G plans that can’t be achieved without our amazing Mentors – we need to bring on board over 400 Mentors to reach our goal of 4,000+ students in 2023!
To get you signed up we just need:
Once you are on board, we’ll prompt you to fill out the rest of the information needed on your dashboard. This includes:
Your information will be hosted on our secure website and will be controlled by you. You can change your preferences and update your own information at any time. We will see your preferences so we can assign you projects and be able to get in touch to arrange PR opportunities (if you want – you will love it!).
We survey our students each year to identify the five local and global issues that are causing them the most stress. These five issues are then matched with a creative discipline (category) to create the project briefs for student teams to choose from. Co-creation and student choice are core elements of The B!G Idea programme.
This year our students are tackling the five issues outlined below and will develop their B!G Ideas with the help of Mentors.
Your Mentor categories include:
Some jobs and sectors lend themselves clearly to one category but others may not be so clear cut. If you’re unsure just give us a shout at mentors@thebigidea.ie.
We do our very best to match our B!G Mentors with students and projects in their chosen categories but this may not always be possible. As with everything in The B!G Idea we are very much student led so they have co-created the project briefs with us and they have chosen which issue they want to tackle. This choice is so important and empowering for students and means some categories may have more entries than others. Not sure it’s the best fit? – just ask us and we can chat you through it! mentors@thebigidea.ie.
As an Irish programme it’s of particular interest for Irish people based in Ireland or abroad but we actively welcome (and even seek out) mentors from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds and social classes – we want a true reflection of Ireland and the world today in our B!G mentor panel.
Absolutely! Our B!G Mentors really do provide a vital link between our students, their communities and Industry. We like to shout loud and proud about The B!G Idea and encourage our Mentors to do the same. Through your personal dashboard we provide you with all the tools you need to display your involvement on social media with a (literal) badge of honour!
Feel free to add your mentoring role on LinkedIn! You’re doing great things, don’t be shy about it (it also helps us to spread the word…win win!)
If you are not getting the emails to reset your password please email mentors@thebigidea.ie and we can sort it out for you.