Hi everyone, it’s Clive here. I wanted to share a quick update.

This summer, I've had the pleasure of shadowing Tim at State School Ventures (SSV) for the past few weeks. Having attended predominantly international schools, working with Tim at SSV has been a truly eye-opening experience.

Here are a few things that I have learned:

1. The UK tech sector is overwhelmingly indexed toward people that attended private school. This shows that we should be doing much more to support innovation and startups among non-private school students and alumni to address social mobility.

2. I have become a lot more optimistic about this change, finding that there are people who are extremely knowledgeable in their field, well-connected and more than happy to give their time to help. Many of these individuals are mentors in our programme, ready to support the cohort of founders who have made it on to our accelerator.

3. Reaching out to share SSV's valuable opportunity to countless communities has been challenging, with an average response rate of 1 in 20. However, it has been undeniably exciting to be on the front lines, witnessing driven individuals pitch their innovative ideas. Even more so, seeing a product or service being developed that has not yet been released to the general public is incredibly rewarding.

4. The highlight of my experience so far has definitely been the thought-provoking talks with Tim. He seems to always ask the right questions. With Tim running the programme, any founder is guaranteed to be in good hands.

To the founders on the fence about applying, it's important to note that despite the adage that nothing in life is free, this programme genuinely offers a free 8-week accelerator. While not the official motto of SSV, Tim once said it should be "always free, but never shit", and I think this would be very fitting.

I look forward to contributing further to SSV's growth this summer and am excited to see the success of the startups that emerge from it.

- Clive Ramsden