The ORAM Next Gen Festival is one moment inside a longer story. For one day, hundreds of young professionals, speakers and partners occupy the same space to work on a shared question: how do we accelerate change in systems that are moving too slowly?
What you get out of that day depends less on the program and more on how deliberately you move through it. Here's how to use it well.
Come with a question, not just curiosity.
Curiosity gets you through the door. A question gets you something to act on. Before the festival, write down one real problem you're facing — in your organisation, your industry, your own decision-making. Let that question guide which sessions you choose and which conversations you start. A festival full of interesting ideas is only useful if you leave with an answer to something specific.
Choose deliberately: sessions fill up.
All workshops, masterclasses and panels are open on a walk-in basis. There is no registration that guarantees you a seat: full is full. That's not a flaw in the system, it's a filter. It rewards people who show up with intention.
So before the day starts, rank your sessions. Know which one matters most to your question, and get there early for that one. If it's full, don't treat it as a loss — treat it instead as a prompt to choose your second option with the same intent you brought to your first. Some of the most valuable conversations at ORAM Next Gen happen in rooms people didn't originally plan to enter.
Treat the room, not just the stage, as the content.
The person next to you is not an interruption to the program, they're part of it. Real impact requires collaboration across sectors and generations, and that starts with a conversation, not a keynote. Introduce yourself before a session starts. Ask what problem brought them there. Some of what you take home will come from the stage. Some of it will come from the seat beside you.
Push speakers past the polished answer.
Speakers at ORAM Next Gen are there to share where things actually break down, not to deliver a highlight reel. Use that. Ask what didn't work. Ask what they'd do differently. Ask what a 27-year-old in the room could realistically do on Monday morning. The more specific your question, the more useful the answer.
Leave with one commitment, not ten takeaways.
Inspiration that doesn't translate into action has limited value. At the end of the day, most people leave with a notebook full of ideas and follow through on none of them. Don't be most people. Pick one thing — one action, one conversation to continue, one assumption you're going to challenge inside your own organisation — and commit to it before you leave the building. Say it out loud to someone. That's what turns a good day into a starting point.
Stay in the room after the room closes.
ORAM Next Gen isn't a one-day event you attend and then close the tab on. It's a platform and a network that continues long after the festival ends. Follow up with the people you met. Reconnect with a speaker whose session raised more questions than it answered. The value of the day compounds in the weeks after it, if you let it.
The festival gives you access. What you do with it is still yours to decide. Show up early for what matters most to you, ask better questions than you planned to, and leave with something you're actually responsible for. That's the difference between attending an event and joining a movement.