At the Association for Consultancy and Engineering 2023 awards, the Best Social Value Project winner was The Fest Hub - an initiative founded by Ramboll civil engineer and former Charlton Athletic Academy footballer, Emmanuel Afolabi.

We interviewed Emmanuel to find out more about how and why he set-up the Fest Hub, what it means to win the Best Social Value Award, as well as his career choice of civil engineering.

Q. Can you tell us about the Fest Hub?

When I was released from Charlton Athletic football club, the big question for me was “what next?”.  I love football, it was difficult to imagine doing anything else. Luckily, I had always been interested in how buildings are made, and I had a cousin who was an engineer who inspired me to give it a try. Many young people in my situation, particularly from a disadvantaged community, do not think that they have a shot at another interesting career or might not have a role model to help them see that other good pathways are open to them. That is why the Fest Hub was set-up, to help young people see their options, especially in careers where there is a shortage of skilled talent coming through to meet future needs like science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The Fest Hub currently runs projects in London with STEM workshops, mentoring, site and office visits to engage young people. We have plans to expand our offerings to all our sports club partners. Our programmes allow organisations to highlight who they are and what they do to our sports clubs and schools and share knowledge with our students and sports players. We make sure it is a fun experience for our young people. If you click here, you can watch my video about the Fest Hub: https://thefesthub.org/about-us/

Here you can see a video about the impact we are having:

Q. What are your key achievements?

Well, I went on to qualify for a place at university and got my degree in civil engineering. I also have a great job with a leading engineering company, Ramboll. They are amazing and have supported me in all my endeavours and I was presented with the 2022 Global Ramboll Equality Diversity Inclusion & Culture award for founding The Fest Hub.

Going on to win the Best Social Value project of the year at the ACE 2023 awards as well as featuring in key industry publications including the League Football Education, Construction News and Infrastructure Intelligence as well as the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation and Institution of Civil Engineers websites are also key achievements for me.

Away from my personal career achievements, the best achievement of all is successfully delivering our programmes with our sporting partners and hearing positive feedback from our school students and sports players.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job/career?

I like the job satisfaction, the fact I can say I designed something and see it built is great.

Q. What do you like about your employer?

The Ramboll Foundation has been amazing in funding The Fest Hub as well as providing Ramboll volunteers to help deliver the programme.

Q. What are your goals? (career or life and Fest Hub)

We would like to take the London Fest Hub model out to other UK cities and help inspire more young people. We have found that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds think that they would not stand a chance in a science, technology or engineering career and through The Fest Hub we successfully challenge those perceptions using the power of sport to make these careers attractive. We are not currently involved in women’s football but I am also hoping to change that to get more young women into the sector too. Football is a great way to involve young people.

Q. What ACE services do you use/events have you been too? How do you benefit from ACE?

I successfully delivered a workshop with ACE emerging professionals last year at Charlton's training ground. I also featured on an online ACE panel discussing ageism. ACE gives me a great platform to promote equality, diversity and inclusion, as well as to make important connections across the built environment sector and learn from others.

Winning the ACE Award for Best Social Project in 2023 was a huge accolade for me personally and for the project. It is very humbling and empowering to get this level of recognition from the industry.

Q. What does your career bring to your life?

It allows me to be creative and use my skills in ways the wider society and benefit from.

Q. What would you say to someone who is thinking about working in engineering?

I would say engineering is broad in terms of what you can go into, there are new roles being made constantly, it is about finding what you are good at and building up experience. The great thing about engineering is once you are in the industry, you can transition into different type of jobs. 

Q. How would you advise them to go about it/what helped you?

Attend as many transition events, CV building, interview skills workshops as possible. Try to get some work experience during university to be in the best position possible to land a job.

Q. What if any benefits have you gained from the social aspects of your job? (volunteering, representing the organisation at ACE events? Etc)

Utilising engineer skillset to inspire young people/sports players into careers within STEM.

Q. What other engineering projects are you working on/have you worked on?

I worked on A40 Park & Ride designing the pavement for the car park as well as several other projects including Onside Bristol Youth Zones, Devonshire Gardens housing and commercial developments and more.

Q. What new trends have you noticed in the sector?

Social value is becoming and more important within the industry, it is important for employers to think of innovative ways to deliver social value. Working with The Fest Hub certainly helps in that regard.