Bejay Mulenga - from the Tuck Shop kid to Supa Network

For this episode I’m joined by Bejay Mulenga, Founder of Supa Network.

I first met Bejay at the 2014 Conservative Party conference. He was about to speak in front of 3,000 people just before George Osbourne took the stage- no mean feat at 19 years old.

He told his story about his first foray into entrepreneurship- setting up a tuck shop for his school, making £15,000 in his first term and how he transformed this business into a franchise of tuck shops. By 16 years of age, he was operating a £200,000 business with plans to train 5,000 young entrepreneurs.

He received a full standing ovation.

Fast-forward to today and Bejay’s Supa Network has supported over 10,000 young people at 81 locations across the country, doing everything from improving their digital literacy to working with Apple in developing their stores into learning centres. Talking about the changing the landscape of the education sector in response to the pandemic, Bejay cites the amazing work of Jack Butcher as a prime example of the creator economy.

We also discuss the fascinating emerging career of a Learning Designer- the educational equivalent of a UX designer for a dev team- and how a focus on learning design can affect a business or product.

Ever since that first speech in 2014, Bejay has always been someone to offer me a
different perspective and it’s always refreshing to speak to him.

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