Meet the Intern!

Hi! My name’s Sephi (short for Josephine!) and I’m lucky enough to be starting my work experience period with Virtual Umbrella this week! I’m a first-year PR and Communications student at Southampton Solent University with a passion for technology and games PR. When I’m not studying, you can find me gaming, swimming or eating red velvet cake.

My background is in video game livestreaming, which is how I fell in love with the communities surrounding the games and tech industry. I soon realised that my favourite part of being a streamer was organising events, running my own social media campaigns and getting to communicate with people from all over the world. I began looking into community management and ended up pursuing a degree in PR which is proving to be right up my street! And to think it all started with a video game, a web camera and a microphone.

I’ve also worked representing an eSports team at events and as a podcast host. Apparently they weren’t looking for any more pro gamers, even though I have a high score on Hello Kitty’s Island Adventure. As much as I love getting free stuff from games booths, the best part about working at events was getting to meet so many likeminded people and show off what we did best.

I’m so excited to be working with VR, as it’s an avenue I haven’t really gotten to explore before. As well as its application in the games industry, I’m learning that it can be used as an innovative, engaging marketing tool for all kinds of different organisations! VR demonstrates a technology immersive enough to evoke powerful empathy and real emotions, and I think that’s pretty amazing. So, I want to round this off by thanking Bertie and Samantha for letting me join them on this leg of their journey!