How To Academy: A New Venture From the Co-Founder of Intelligence Squared

LONDON, September 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Co-founder of Intelligence Squared John Gordon introduces a new way to square your intelligence, with the How To Academy. Launched this week with partners who include Paul Keegan and Frances Wilson, the How To Academy provides compact courses for people who think big.
 
Whether you want to build a bicycle in a morning, make a movie in a weekend, master James Joyce or start a business, we have the experts who can make it happen. The How To Academy will run day workshops, evening events, midnight masterclasses, business breakfasts, dinner-debates, weekend courses, and three-month writing groups with many of the sessions streamed online. Events will be held in different London venues, ranging from an artist's studio in the heart of Notting Hill to Somerset House, the Royal Institution, the First Floor, the Tabernacle and the RIBA.
 
Our glittering array of tutors and speakers will include: spy-novelist Charles Cumming leading novices through the undergrowth of thriller writing; financial guru Jonathan Davies on how to make a safe investment, journalist Sam Leith on recovering the lost art of Plain English, and communication coach Edie Lush on how to beat your fear of public speaking. And there is more:

+ historian and biographer Peter Parker shows you how to write a memoir for your grandchildren;

+ Dr John Bradshaw, of Bristol University's Anthrozoology Institute, explains how to know what your dog is thinking;

+ journalist Will Skidelsky leads you through the menu of food-writing;

+ legendary photographer David Montgomery on the rules of light and the basics of classic picture-taking;

+ chefs Nicholas Lander and Alistair Little reveal the secrets of how to open a successful restaurant;

+ celebrity scholar Colin MacCabe on how to read James Joyce over the course of a weekend;

+ music critic Rupert Christiansen invites you to unblock your ears to opera;

+ writer and seasoned runner Katherine Bucknell advises on how to run a marathon. . .

. . . while in Life's a Pitch, style guru Stephen Bayley tells you how to succeed, however sedentary, and make people say Yes!
 
Above all, and what makes this Academy so different, the focus is on practical teaching and achievable ends, in business as elsewhere. In this spirit, we will also be running free events for teenagers, with top specialists in each profession telling them what they need to know, from becoming a lawyer to getting ahead in advertising. Our Life-Skills Jamborie is a unique two-day half-term all-out event, with sessions including how to interview well, how to write a great CV, how to gain work experience, how to get into the workplace.

Finally if there is a Course anyone wants to take which isn't currently listed, the How To Academy's " a la carte intellectual catering ' service can organise it.

For those who need more, the How To Academy never sleeps

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

How To Academy is a new educational initiative with unique appeal that will make it a major new force in education or more properly ' intellectual edu-tainment.'

The key characteristics of the How To Academy  can be described as follows:

- How To Academy is unique in offering learning experiences not just for adults but also importantly for teenagers including a pioneering two day Life Skills for Teenagers Jamboree which is designed to enhance everyone's career prospects.

- How To Academy will not be offering extended courses other than writing courses. Instead it will  pioneer weekend speed learning with weekends devoted to How To read James Joyce, How To master Philosophy, How To make a film in a weekend etc. From the autumn it will be extending these weekend experiences and starting intellectual retreats in country houses across the UK.

- How To Academy believes the space in which a course is taught is important so rather than having a fixed venue, the How To Academy will be using a range of different venues depending on the event , ranging from an artists studio in Notting Hill , baroque private rooms , Pall Mall clubs, the Royal Institution and the Gate cinema. On the whole most of the courses will take place in West London.

- How To Academy has enlisted an extraordinary roster of experts to teach the courses ranging from the leading Joycean scholar Colin MacCabe to the pioneer of Vertical Gardening Patrick Blanc. It will also feature major historians including Norman Stone, Philip Mansel, and James Buchan. And some of the finest journalists writing today including Will Skidelsky, Sam Leith, Rupert Christiansen, and Stephen Bayley.

-'How To Academy will have a major focus on navigating its clients  through the major issues of the day, whether political (( Understanding Iran or Turkey) or technological (How to master 3D printing).  What we offer - and no one else does - is a means to unlock the dazzling complexity of twenty-first century life, to deal with The Shock of the New.

- How To Academy's programme is  eclectic and includes events such as How To understand your dog, How To run a marathon, How To play online poker, How To master 3D printing. And many more.

- How To Academy's educational programme post launch will be driven by the needs of its audience via a unique Suggest Course button which on notification we will do our best to provide exactly the course/ session requested.

- How To Academy will also be organising unique Special Events such as taking a small party to see Simon Callow at the Royal Opera House in his one man show on Wagner and then on to dinner with Simon Callow at the Garrick Club.

- How To Academy will be introducing in the Autumn a private Dinner Club ( debating and dating) which will feature pop up chefs doing the catering and pre-dinner Oxford Union style debates with two well known names going head to head on the issue of the day. "The Dinner Club: Get engaged." will be announced shortly.

- How To Academy courses, starting from October, will be live streamed using a revolutionary new technology which enables all the online participants to interact with each other and the course tutor. They will also be available subsequently for downloading.