Nick Corston

I'm quite chuffed to have got to a stage in my life for Wired and The Guardian to have said I'm a man on a mission. Ha ha.

Here's my elevator pitch, which I guess got me here:

I have a master’s degree in electronics, grade A design A-level and a big mouth.

So I understand tech, am creatively aware and love selling a good story. It’s a killer combination that’s got me into all sorts of trouble.

In 20 odd years I’ve started and sold a couple of modest but noticed digital marketing agencies and helped put other advertising, marketing and innovation agencies on the map.

A milestone of my life came with the birth of our sons. Doing my best to be a half decent dad to them, watching a few TED talks and reading the first half of a couple of books has opened my eyes to so many things.

Inspired by Sir Ken Robinson's No 1 TED talk and a bunch of creatives in a corner of a field at a festival, I took time out from my career trajectory to co-found a community powered initiative to inspire primary children with creativity across the STEAM skills of Science, Tech, Engineering, ART and Maths.

STEAM Co has received global media coverage and, I’m told, touched lives – we’re now looking for funding to help roll it out across the country. See www.steamco.org.uk

Sir Ken Robinson and Prof Guy Claxton have done talks for us and Prof. Sugata Mitra is an adviser. I was included in a list of the world's Top 100 EdTech leaders! You can't make it up but my talk at The RSA sums it up in 2 mins.

As a business development consultant and UKTI business coach, I help raise the profile of communications agencies and other companies that see the synergy of all this - that 'people don't just buy people, they buy interested and interesting people'.

I'm also helping launch the ReadingWise intervention to jump-start reading for the 20% who struggle.

'Art is what we call it when when what we do might connect people'

Seth Godin