Forging a diverse fellowship
The very first line of The Shortcut’s mission says, “The Shortcut is a community driven organisation that promotes diversity as an engine for growth.” And while I spend a lot of time looking outwards at the community and the essence of entrepreneurship in my View from the Monolith series, I thought I’d take a break from that, for an article looking inwards. Today, I’d like to introduce you to some of our diverse organisation, focussing on some of our interns who don’t regularly contribute to the blog. They are the intern, and international, combustion engine who drive The Shortcut forward.
Guido
Team: Talent
Origin: Netherlands
Special Skills: Positivity, geekiness and languages
Guido moved to Finland because of a love for the Nordic countries. He believes that shoes limit personal freedom, and is glad that the habit is to remove them at The Shortcut Lab. He enjoys working in a team with different perspectives from around the world, although if push comes to shove, it’s the different foods that come with a diverse team he truly appreciates.
[No shoes and a love of food, are we absolutely sure he’s not a hobbit? Wait, that gives me an idea for the pictures!]
Kate
Team: Events
Origin: St Petersburg
Special Skills: Organisation and multi-tasking
She came to Finland to study. She says, “Working only with Finns, you just say ‘moi’ in the morning and ‘moi moi’ when leaving; whereas working in multicultural environment is always about laughing, joking, expressing feelings and telling news. Kind of pleasant hustle and bustle.”
Jevgeni
Team: Sales and Partnership
Origin: Estonia
Special Skills: Strategic thinking, experience with CRM and Sales
He’s adjusting to the move to Finland, though he says, “Helsinki is surprisingly much colder than Tallinn.” Working in a diverse team, Jevgeni likes that it provides lots of different points of view and personalities, as well as the possibility to learn “a bunch of languages”.
Gurjeet
Team: Talent
Origin: India
Special Skills: Hiring, HR
Gurjeet has moved on to a new role at Games Factory Talents. Before she left, I asked her, what’s so great about working in a diverse environment anyway, and she said, “You can be yourself, you get to meet people from different backgrounds, learn from their various experiences and have different kind of food.”
Daniel
Team: Tech
Origin: United States
Special Skills: Googling, website maintenance and curriculum design
He is also keen to emphasise the advantages of the food selections from a diverse team. “Potluck lunches are always exciting!” he assures me. He does have one caveat, however. “Everyone has a surprise salmiakki story — mine was doughnuts at Halloween. I could see from the sign that they were filled with something dark. In my naiveté, I thought it was chocolate, or perhaps a current jam. I was wrong.”
In conclusion
One does not simply walk into a diverse team. Diversity can bring a wide variety of skills, experience and insights to your team, but it does rather seem it also brings wider food options. And between you and me, having been at a couple of put luck lunches at The Shortcut now… they aren’t wrong!
