Omniversity of Manchester

The Omniversity of Manchester is a programme of professional training courses at the Manchester Digital Laboratory (MadLab), led by some of the sharpest minds and most cutting-edge practitioners around. MadLab brings in recognised experts in their field to teach hands-on skills in affordable workshops in the heart of the city. Our subjects range from professional development to creative skills: to give you a flavour of what’s on offer, our recent courses have included VVVV projection mapping, mobile platform development for SAP, Arduino and the Internet of Things and HTML for beginners. Whatever you’re interested in, the Omniversity has a course to help develop your skills.

Courses?

We’re constantly adding new courses, and we’ll re-run some of the higher-demand courses.

You’ll find our courses listed on the Calendar page, where you can find out what each will cover – as well as access in-depth material about what you’ll learn, what you’ll need to know, and what skills you should sharpen up in advance. We’ll also tell you what equipment you will need to bring – we’re assuming you have your own laptop, and we’re passing on the cost savings in not having to provide equipment for you.

Each course has a private group with it, which you’ll be invited to once you’ve signed up and available as long as we’re in operation. You’ll be in touch with everyone else you study with, as well as the course leaders, long after the course. We hope you’ll use this to continue to share experiences with the others you’ll meet and help each other out. We don’t want our courses to end when they end, so to speak.

Courses include buffet lunches and free refreshments, so you’ll not need to hunt around wasting time looking for a sandwich. Additionally, we provide all your materials on USB sticks and paper, so you only need to turn up on the day with your laptop, and you’ll be off. We think all this is a good model –  and we’re passing this on for some extremely competitive prices.

Why?

You could go to university and learn about something that was cutting-edge five years ago. It’ll cost you a few thou… seven to nine thousand pounds, and between one and three years of your life, at the end of which, things will have changed.

You could teach yourself skills by downloading free documentation and videos and spend a few hours every night with them. It’ll take you weeks, and you won’t have any support networks. You can’t easily ask questions of a book or tutorial page.

You could go on a fancy, £1500 a day course in a shiny building with a professional tutor in a nice suit. Chances are, they hate doing it, and they don’t practice what they teach, but the money’s good.

We are doing something else. We are keeping prices insanely low. You’ll learn at a rate ten times higher than if you taught yourself. You’ll learn the insights that only well-versed industry experts can know. You’ll be learning things other institutions will not be providing for a few years, at the very least, or aren’t economically viable for them to offer.

We think this is a genuinely exciting and innovative way to approach professional development. We hope you do too.