Collab Collective Podcast Collab Collective

Jarell Alvarez is a UX Designer in Vancouver and the founder of Vancouver Design Checkin. VDC is a slack community that meets bi-weekly on Google meetup to "check in" with other designers and see how everyone is doing. He's a dear friend of the Collab Collective family and in this episode, Jarell shares his journey on how he started Vancouver Design Checkin and why he wants to create a more inclusive and engagement community. He also shares about networking and how he grew his community in a very fast rate. 

Join Vancouver Design Checkin here: vandesigncheckin.slack.com

If you have any question please contact us at teamcollabco@gmail.com or send us a DM on instagram @collabcollective.ca.

Chris was the digital marketing instructor at RED Academy and one of the few who have taught at both locations in Vancouver and Toronto. In this episode we talk about the differences and similarities between the East Coast and West Coast locations and also talk a little about how he started his own podcast while at RED.

We also talk about the elements of what makes a strong community like having that shared experience in a cohort and discuss how remote learning can adapt to create that similar effect. This was a packed episode full of energy and juicy insights.



Office Parody Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7Fet8FtDUE
Online Mixology: https://harpandhawthorne.com/

Leo was the UI/UX Instructor at RED Academy's Toronto location and is currently a UX Designer at Blue Cross Canada. Today we have Agnes Tseng, the former VP of HR at RED, returning to the podcast as the co-host and in this episode we talk about Leo's journey from being a secondary school teacher in London to a multi-disiplinary designer armed with some coding skills on the side.

Leo also shares about the close connections he made with his students as he summarized it in a 5-part article on Medium. If you also want to check out his fancy website, please see the links below. 

As always, please reach out to us if you have any questions or requests at teamcollabco@gmail.com or DM us on instagram @collabcollective.ca


Leo's Medium Article | Leo's Website | Leo's Agency

Kirill Vechtomov is a UX Designer at Amazon and is a certified senior product designer and strategist with a background in business, web development and user research. He is also the founder of My SoulTeam, a platform where tech professionals can research companies and learn more about what it’s like to work there before applying.

In this episode, Kirill shares his journey on how he got started as a designer and navigated his way through various freelancing jobs, working at agencies, startups, and large corporations. Josh and Kirill discuss about the views on being a generalist vs a specialist when planning your career as a designer. If you want to know more about My SoulTeam, check out their website at https://mysoulteam.com/.

If you have any question please contact us at teamcollabco@gmail.com or send us a DM on instagram @collabcollective.ca.

Grace Ling is the founder of Design Buddies community and currently an intern at Electronic Arts. She studied biomedical engineering and has a masters degree in computer science/engineering at Santa Clara University. 

In this episode, Grace shares how she grew her online community to 10,000 members in just 6 months with a can-do attitude and an inclusive spirit. If you'd like to get involved in Design Buddies, please check their website at https://designbuddies.community/.

If you have any question please contact us at teamcollabco@gmail.com or send us a DM on instagram @collabcollective.ca.

Welcome to a special mini-series of the collab collective podcast called Aftermath: Life After RED, where we catch up with former RED Academy staff and students and follow up on their stories since their time at RED. For those who were negatively impacted by the sudden closure of our beloved tech bootcamp school in Vancouver, we hope that these series of interviews provide a sense of healing and healthy closure - Also, we want to reconnect you to some familiar voices in the community and hopefully encourage others to reach out and help each other out in these trying times.

In this episode, I am joined by Haidee Kongpreecha, the former global curriculum director at RED Academy as my co-host to catch up with Agnes Tseng. She was the VP of HR based in Toronto and she shares her story on what happened and what she's doing now. 

Agnes' career coaching: @thethriveparty on Instagram

If you'd like to share your story or have any questions regarding this segment, please reach out to us at teamcollabco@gmail.com or hit us up on insta @collabcollective.ca