Webinar: How gamification, AI and new approaches are transforming work experience by Springpod

Our latest webinar series, The Work Experience Lab, is designed to give employers practical, hands-on insights into the latest innovations in engaging the future workforce. It aims to provide actionable tips and strategies that help employers engage young people meaningfully, develop their skills, and connect with future talent.

About This Webinar

Work experience is evolving. Programmes that are thoughtfully and innovatively designed are seeing higher engagement, stronger completion rates, and greater confidence from young people entering the workforce.

For employers, this creates a valuable opportunity. When work experience genuinely engages and develops participants, it can become a strategic tool for strengthening early talent pipelines, improving candidate readiness, and building stronger connections with future hires.

In this session, we’ll explore the latest innovations in digital work experience and what they mean for employers looking to attract, engage and prepare early talent.

What you’ll gain from attending

- Insight into what motivates young people today, shared directly by students

- Data-backed insights into engagement and completion behaviour in digital work experience

- How leading employers are innovating their early careers strategies, including the RAF

- An introduction to The Big Work Experience Challenge, helping employers connect with future talent earlier while opening employment opportunities for young people

Whether you're looking to increase engagement in your early talent programmes, build candidate readiness, or strengthen your future talent pipeline, this session will provide practical insights you can apply to your strategy.

Attend live to ask questions, or register to receive the recording and watch on demand at a time that suits you.

Agenda

What makes young people commit to an experience and what feels genuinely rewarding.
What the data tells us about modern approaches (from gamification to AI-driven content and interactive simulations) and why they influence behaviour.
How the RAF embraced a more interactive approach and the results they’ve seen.
Exploring our national initiative in partnership with the Department for Education, and what it means for students and employers alike.

Springpod

Kurt Skillen

Head of Product at Springpod

Kurt is Head of Product at Springpod, where he leads the platform’s product strategy for more than 800,000 student users and employer and university partners. Since joining in 2023, he has driven major innovation across the platform, including the launch of an AI-powered Interview Coach to help young people practise personalised interviews, alongside a full redevelopment of the student journey that has significantly improved activation and engagement. He has also led strategic digital partnerships with organisations including UCAS and the Department for Education, while supporting the platform’s global expansion.

Kurt began his career in quality assurance and previously served as Head of QA at Liverpool John Moores University, where he led quality strategy across major digital transformation projects. After completing an MBA, he moved into product leadership, bringing a pragmatic, systems-focused approach to building technology that helps young people access opportunities and take the next step in their careers. His current focus is on harnessing AI to transform how young people prepare for the world of work.

Paul Buxton MBA

Wing Commander at RAF

Paul joined the RAF as a Movements Controller before commissioning as a Logistics
Officer in 2000. Throughout his career, he worked in a number of diverse areas
including operational planning, career management, training, capability development
and programme management. Highlights included tours as a Liaison Officer with the
Army’s elite 16 Air Assault Brigade, developing contingency plans for the
Department for Energy and taking part in humanitarian relief operations worldwide.
He spent around a third of his career working overseas, including assignments to
Calgary and San Francisco and operational deployments to the Falkland Islands,
Bosnia and Afghanistan. Paul retired from the RAF at the end of 2022 at which time,
as a Group Captain, he was the senior Logistics advisor to the RAF’s leadership
team. After spending 2½ years in industry, as logistics lead for a global mining
project and a consultant, he rejoined the RAF as a Reservist, where he is
responsible for identifying and delivering new & novel short-term engagement
opportunities. In his spare time, Paul volunteers with the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission and enjoys participating in a number of sports, including karate and
snowboarding.

Dr Michael Drummond

Principal Lecturer & Programme Leader at Liverpool John Moores University

Dr Michael Drummond is a Principal Lecturer and Programme Leader at Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University. With over a decade of experience in business analysis, project management, and organisational improvement across both the public and private sectors, he brings strong industry insight into his teaching.

He leads the MSc Supply Chain, Logistics and Management and BSc Business Management programmes, and teaches across areas including research methods, business consultancy, data analysis, and communication theory. Before moving fully into academia, Michael held senior roles in business analysis and transformation at Liverpool John Moores University, Cheshire Police, and Home Retail Group, delivering strategic change and efficiency initiatives.

Outside of academia, Michael balances teaching and research with family life as a father of twins, enjoys keeping fit at the gym, and remains a resilient Everton supporter.

Vedant Gaikwad

Student at University of Liverpool & Intern at Springpod

Vedant Gaikwad is a Computer Science postgraduate student at the University of Liverpool with five years of entrepreneurial experience bridging business strategy and technical execution. He recently completed an AI Consulting micro-internship with Accenture through Springpod, designing an AI-powered customer onboarding solution for a Tier-2 UK bank that reduced onboarding time from days to minutes. Alongside his studies, he has co-founded a digital marketing agency and conducted data-driven business analysis using Python, SQL, Excel, and Power BI. He is completing an MSc in Computer Science with an industry placement year and is seeking graduate opportunities in consulting, business analysis, data analytics, or technical strategy from Summer or Autumn 2026.