AN Aberdeen technology start-up which links businesses with students for paid project work is expanding into the central belt with the launch today of an Edinburgh office, and it plans to open in Glasgow soon.
Udrafter – launched last year by brothers Luke and Daryll Morrow– has also flagged ambitions to expand south of the Border with a focus on major cities.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Stetson hat-focused Johnson should weigh priorities on post-Brexit trade
The brothers’ online udrafter.com platform – short for the University Draft – enables businesses to engage students looking for paid work experience on projects from as little as two hours in duration.
Udrafter aims to allow businesses to secure high-quality work at a relatively low cost without tying up staff. It has around 170 businesses and more than 1,000 students registered.
Managing director Daryll Morrow, while highlighting potential benefits of the platform for businesses, declared that “Udrafter’s mission is to end exploitation of students through unpaid internships which only fit with the wealthiest in society”.
Emphasising potential for students to boost their chances of securing full-time work by undertaking projects for companies, he added: “The Udrafter micro-internships platform will rebalance and reshape student opportunities regardless of background or network.”
Udrafter, which raised about £300,000 on the Seedrs platform recently, has hired three employees and plans further recruitment as it expands.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Davis took wrong Brexit path but he is right on Budget pension raid
Luke Morrow said: “Although the new office is in Edinburgh, we have very much got our sights on Glasgow as well and would hope to be opening an office there in the near [future] too.
“Then if all goes well the obvious next step is to expand south of the Border. One of the great things about the platform is that it’s ready to roll out really quickly whenever we think the time is right.”
Daryll Morrow, 27, said: “I attended graduate job interviews but was told I didn’t have enough experience. My brother and I kept hearing stories from friends...who had faced the same challenge.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here