Our ada Fellows come from a wide variety of areas and positions. A large proportion of them work in marketing, product development, project management and sales. Most work in middle management or are high potentials who want to strengthen their leadership skills and change their organization. Our Fellows are represented internationally and come from more than 20 countries, including the USA, South Africa, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Japan. The average age of Fellows is currently 39, ranging from 24 to 58. 53% of the Fellows are male and 47% female.
ada Ambassadors are alumni who want to continue to develop after their fellowship and remain closely connected to our community. As an Ambassador, you support other Fellows in their projects - for example as a mentor or discuss your favorite topic on one of our (virtual) stages. Not only can you try yourself out, but you can also expand your personal network and take part in the Ada Lovelace Festival free of charge. To become an ada Ambassador, you must actively participate in the ada community at least once a year, for example by organizing the Future Lab Day, a coaching session or an Expert Lecture.
Our ada Fellows work all over the world, from Germany to Turkey to Brazil. This is great, but also means that Fellows should have English language skills in order to learn with and from each other. All learning content is available in German and English. The interaction in the community and the events are mainly in English. In addition, all community events usually take place between 8 am and 6 pm CET, so in some time zones, community event participation is often only possible in the morning or early evening.
Yes, depending on their level of learning and participation in events and the Future Lab, they receive either a certificate of participation or a certificate with a silver or even gold award.
Your organization can best be changed by employees who are themselves highly motivated and have the courage to change. We therefore recommend selecting ada Fellows via an internal application process. We have had good experience with motivational videos or short texts. As soon as you are on board, you can get started with our sample documents.
In addition to the strategic anchoring in the organization, it is crucial that you promote a Fellow Lead who will help build, shape and further develop the internal ada community in order to achieve the best possible integration between the Fellowship and your organization. In our experience, these are people with strong communication skills and enthusiasm who can provide structure and routine to your community and at the same time inspire others to get involved and try things out. They should also have a desire and interest in exchanging ideas with Fellow Leads from other organizations. It is optional for Fellow Leads to participate in the program themselves.
Anyone who is responsible for transformation, innovation, digitalization and cultural change in the organization is made for initiating and implementing the ada Fellowship in the organization. These roles often have natural interfaces with Talent Development and can therefore integrate the program into the organizational strategy in the best possible way.
Please get in touch with our ada team so that we can understand your current challenges and wishes and create a customized offer for you.
In our experience, a successful participation in the ada Fellowship involves around 120 hours in total or 1-2 days per month. The time investment is divided into: about six hours per month for individual learning and community events, participation in the Ada Lovelace Festival (2 days in total), the Co-Working Day (1 day in total) and the Future Lab (30 hours spread over three months). In our experience, Fellows block two additional hours per month for check-ins, pitch sessions and events within the organization.
Common Traits Across All Fellows
1. Openness: It is important that fellows are open to new technologies and be prepared to deal with the latest developments in the field of digitalization. At the same time, they should be willing to implement what they have learned in their day-to-day work and by that change their organization.
2. Language Skills: As our platform is bilingual and many of our events are held in English, a basic knowledge of English is essential.
3. Commitment: Fellows should schedule regular time slots for fellowship activities inside and outside the organization. In our experience, successful participants commit to 120 hours time investment per year (more here)
4. Impact: Proactivity is key: Successful fellows implement at least one project or initiative that brings about direct change for your colleagues. This will not only make them visible, but also directly influence the organizational culture.
5. Networking: Fellows love to exchange regularly with co-fellows and international experts to get new impulses and start collaborations. This way they will also receive practical feedback and best practices to individual challenges in their professional work context.
Our ada fellows come from a wide variety of areas and positions. Most of them work in middle management or are high potentials who want to strengthen their leadership skills and change their organization. What they all have in common is that they are interested in transformation, innovation and technology, but are not yet experts themselves.
We distinguish between four typical profiles:
1. Top Management:
- Challenge: Struggles to incorporate tech and innovation on a continuous basis in ones area.
- Benefit: Applies gained tech skills to own business area, and learns new practices from other professionals.
- High level of seniority, high responsibility, low Tech Literacy
2. Middle Management
- Challenge: Achieving team's goals while ensuring they stay updated and adapt to developments.
- Benefit: Shares struggles, gains practical ideas, and clarifies ones team's future direction.
- Medium seniority, a lot of responsibility, light Tech Literacy
3. Subject Matter Expert
- Challenge: Feels isolated and behind on recent advancements.
- Benefit: Gets insights into future changes and opportunities to tackle cross-discipline challenges.
- Medium seniority, a lot of responsibility, light Tech Literacy
4. High Potential
- Challenge: Despite the motivation, High Potentials struggles to incorporate tech and agility in client interactions.
- Benefit: Learns how to focus on practical skills in productivity and innovation management, and integrate AI.
- Low level of seniority, some responsibility, high Tech Literacy in comparison to the other profiles
If you are an organization with more than 1,000 employees, we recommend that you start with at least 20 employees per year. This will allow the knowledge and network within your organization to become more firmly anchored and develop an impact on the entire organization.
The fellowship starts at three different times per year: in March, June and September. You can find the next possible start date on join-ada.com/fellowship
