At Storytelling Unboxed, we harness the power of stories to connect and inspire. Our social venture creates a vibrant community where students, academics, industry professionals, and community members come together to share their narratives.
With Voice, Therapy, and Recovery as our guiding principles, we invite you to join us on this journey—where every story matters and everyone is heard.
Throughout the ages, storytelling has been the bedrock of human experience, with the power to transform, create mythologies, and offer origins. In the digital era, where narratives are often controlled by a few, new opportunities arise for individuals and communities to reclaim their voices.
Storytelling Unboxed is a social venture that seeks to harness this power, empowering students, educators, and leaders to own their narratives and inspire resilience. Through initiatives like the Storytelling Club, Community Engagement, and Corporate Dialogue, we aim to create a dynamic learning community that connects education with creativity, fostering personal growth and collective transformation through storytelling.
The storytelling club aims to work as an extension of leveraging storytelling as a teaching pedagogy. This aims to foster teacher-student and student-student conversations, leading to the co-creation of knowledge and enhancement of skill – but more importantly, helping students develop their signature stories. This will help the student embark on a journey to build their personal brand in the creator economy, and will find their identity, voice and develop confidence.
While talking about the education trilogy: knowledge (knowing), skill (doing) and identity (being), in their highly acclaimed book, ‘Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads’, Professor Srikant Datar, the Dean of Harvard Business School and his co-authors have identified that the most missing thing in business education is the third dot – i.e., identity (being). Storytelling Club will address this and work towards empowering the students and helping them find their voice to help them find their identity.
Storytelling will be used as an inspiring and emotional mode of dialogue between the students and organisations by inviting industry professionals and executives for guest lectures, as judges for storytelling and other creative competitions, as well as keynote speakers during the storytelling afternoon or evening club.
Storytelling will be used to reach out to communities, creating a sense of belongingness and fostering engagement and dialogues by launching charitable initiatives in coordination with the student union. Some of the initiatives could collaborate with local organisations and charities and help them to share their stories to inspire the students. The idea is to create a platform for exchanging ideas and engaging students in social cause-related campaigns to instil moral values, fostering purpose and value-driven education.
We offer a range of bespoke services to universities and organisations designed to harness the power of storytelling for educational and professional development.
Our offerings include:
We also provide specialised programmes for community engagement, where storytelling is used to bridge gaps, foster understanding, and build resilient communities.
For corporate clients, we offer strategic storytelling services that enhance stakeholder engagement, strengthen brand identity, and drive organisational change.
Additionally, our storytelling clubs and interactive sessions create a vibrant space for continuous learning and personal growth, allowing participants to explore their own stories and connect with others on a deeper, more meaningful level.
Dr Yasmin Ibrahim is an author and Professor of Digital Economy and Culture, renowned for her extensive writings on new media technologies and their effect on humanity. Her scholarly contributions have significantly shaped our understanding of these fields.
Dr Ibrahim serves on numerous editorial boards, including the esteemed board for Sociology. She has been a diligent reviewer for EU funding bodies and has offered her expertise as a reviewer for the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) for many years. Her influential work has graced the pages of leading journals such as Ethnicities, Gender, Work and Organization, New Technology, Work and Employment, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Continuum, The British Journal of Psychiatry, and Transcultural Psychiatry, as well as the Journal of Marketing Management. Additionally, she is the convenor for Borderlines, an interdisciplinary research cluster within the school. She has significantly contributed to Equality and Inclusion initiatives at both the School and College levels. She is also a co-founder of Storytelling Unboxed at Queen Mary University of London. Currently, she is serving as Deputy Dean for School of Business and Management.
Moin is an interdisciplinary researcher and a published author, weaving his expertise through the threads of brand storytelling, creativity, innovation, leadership, and strategy. His journey commenced with a fifteen-year service in the Bangladesh Navy, where he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander before choosing to retire and set sail towards new horizons.
His voyage then led him to the vibrant shores of the United Kingdom, where he immersed himself in the dynamic worlds of media, publishing, and financial services for a decade. As a management consultant, Moin’s counsel was sought by many organisations. He had the opportunity to work for the world’s largest international newspaper and contribute to an international subsea project valued at $4 billion. Furthermore, for his dedication to teaching and learning, he worked as a LEA Governor of the London Borough of Hounslow.
Continuing his journey as a seeker of knowledge and transformation, he embarked on yet another quest – this time into the sacred hallways of academia. Today, he serves as a Reader (Associate Professor) in Storytelling and Brand Communication at the Queen Mary University of London, which was built on the foundations of several institutions with a longstanding legacy of contributing to knowledge for nine hundred years. This university gives him an excellent opportunity to inspire and shape the minds of future leaders, turning his classroom into a place of learning and a playground of ideas co-created by the next generation of innovators passionate about making a difference in the world. His prior academic roles include Associate Head of Research and Scholarship, University Ethics Lead, and Vice-Chair of the Research, Scholarship, and Ethics Panel at Coventry University London.
Moin is a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. He contributes to scholarly discourse as an author and reviewer for several academic journals. His educational journey is depicted by his MBA from the University of Strathclyde and his PhD in Management from the University of Nottingham. His continuous development quest includes seeking knowledge through leadership, management, creativity, and entrepreneurship courses from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard. He was also trained at the US Defense Institute of International Legal Studies, the US Navy Atlantic Command, and the US Coast Guard’s Leadership & Quality Institute and Command & Operations School.
In the tranquil abode of academia, where minds converging with ideas flourish, Storytelling Unboxed emerges as a beacon of vision and hope, conceived by Dr SMA Moin and Professor Yasmin Ibrahim from the Department of Marketing at the School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London. This noble initiative starts on 17 February 2023 and reveres the profound essence of voice, a vital thread in the tapestry of identity, and employs the timeless art of storytelling as a catalyst for transformation.
The project seeks to rekindle the sacred fires of dialogue and collaboration between scholars, practitioners and students, and amongst the students themselves. Drawing from the rich wellsprings of our surroundings and the wisdom of thought leaders, it aspires to weave a fabric of communal engagement and inspiration.
Rooted in the triad of values—Voice, Therapy, and Recovery—‘Storytelling Unboxed’ is a sanctuary designed to engage hearts, inspire minds, and celebrate the enduring spirit of humanity. It aims to honor the tales of survival, the poignant sagas of loss, and the triumphant stories of recovery.
Professor Ibrahim reflects: “In the post-COVID classroom, storytelling serves as both personal and collective therapy. It helps in recovering from loss and releasing emotions and voices.” Dr Moin: “Storytelling Unboxed is our third place, a realm between the classroom and the world beyond, where students can narrate their tales, discover their voices, exchange ideas, and unleash their boundless imagination and creativity.”
Professor Ibrahim reflects: “In the post-COVID classroom, storytelling serves as both personal and collective therapy. It helps in recovering from loss and releasing emotions and voices.”
Dr Moin: “Storytelling Unboxed is our third place, a realm between the classroom and the world beyond, where students can narrate their tales, discover their voices, exchange ideas, and unleash their boundless imagination and creativity.”
For more information, please email us.