Venture capitalist Pippa Lamb and HelloFresh co-founder Hamish Shephard have launched Project Ambition, a campaign aimed at, they say, literally encouraging the cultural ‘vibe’ of ambition in Britain’s young people.
The move follows another initiative launched by FirstMinute Capital founders Brent Hoberman, dubbed Enterprise Britain, which has garnered support from the usual suspects and captains of industry. Project Ambition, however, appears to be seeking to ignite a more cultural moment, aimed at a younger audience.
“Basically, it’s not just about encouraging people to start companies. Sure, that will be one aspect for some. But this is trying to do the hard, sticky work at re-directing the culture of how success and ambition are perceived in the UK at a broad scale,” Lamb told Pathfounders.
Less ‘The Apprentice’, more ‘Stormzy’
The initiative was unveiled at 10 Downing Street during London Tech Week, bringing together emerging talent from technology, science, business, music, art, film, sport and fashion with established entrepreneurs, investors and industry leaders.
Its Instagram page, which currently features no posts at all, features a number of young founders from a wide variety of sectors. The web site, which immediately plays music from Dizzee Rascal, is also reminiscent of previous cultural moments in the UK, such as the optimistic BritPop era of the 1990s.
Project Ambition site
Project Ambition’s page says the launch marks the start of a wider programme focused on youth empowerment and rebuilding a culture in which entrepreneurial ambition is publicly encouraged, making “ambition socially desirable, visible, and rewarded across the UK.”
The organisation argues that the UK has no shortage of talent, but has lost some of the culture that celebrates risk-taking, hard work and high achievement.
“Britain has produced world-class excellence across multiple fields for centuries. There is nothing outdated about being proud of that,” Lamb said in a post on LinkedIn.
“The task now is to make it cool again to aim high, work hard, take risks and defy the odds.” She said the UK is not lacking talent, but it is “lacking a culture that celebrates ambition.
The campaign plans to showcase promising young Britons alongside globally recognised founders, creators and pioneers, with the aim of providing visible role models for the next generation.
Lamb told Pathfounders that the project would be “less ‘The Apprentice’, more ‘Stormzy’.”
She added that they were planning for the long haul: “This is a long-term effort to encourage more young people to strive, build, and achieve, and have the self-belief to do so. This is not soft work. It is the foundation upon which everything else rests.”
Showcased at the launch were Dev Sharma, 21, a Social activist and a a founding youth campaigner at Bite Back 2030; TJ Sawyerr, 23, a Creative Director and Artist; Alexander Browder, 17, Founder, Global Crypto Money Laundering Database (which highlights 164 cases of illicit crypto activity); Shani Moran-Simmonds, 19, a Dancer with The Royal Ballet; Michael Domarkas, 19, former competition mathematician, Cambridge physicist, synth bio founder; Lella Violet Halloum, 21, student and youngest employee at IBM Europe, leading global student strategy at IBM.
As well a cultural leaders from the world of fashion and the arts, the launch is also being supported by a range of figures from technology and venture capital, including Entrepreneur First co-founder Matt Clifford, Balderton Capital partner James Wise, Founders Fund partner Trae Stephens, Tony Fadell co-creator of the iPhone and iPod and founder of Nest Labs, Tom Hulme at GV (Google Ventures), Riccardo Zacconi, Cofounder King.com and Ivan Zhao, cofounder of Notion. The event was hosted by Downing Street business adviser Varun Chandra.
