A new LLC from CLA Sr. Instructor Alina Padilla-Miller aims to kickstart the freelance sector for college students.
By Colin Bowyer, Communications Manager - October 30, 2024
The freelancing market is on the rise as more people look for ways to turn their skills into side income, especially amid economic uncertainty. In fact, 39 percent of surveyed US workers freelanced in 2022, up 3% from the previous year. Many university students and alumni struggle to showcase their creative work and skills to find jobs and collaborative opportunities. Agencies, businesses, nonprofits, and university depts want to support developing talent from university students and alumni but face challenges in sourcing them for their business needs and projects.
New Media Communications Senior Instructor Alina Padilla-Miller has incorporated a new LLC called UniCreatives to address this urgent need.
“UniCreatives specializes in connecting university student and alumni creatives to business and collaboration opportunities through a freelance marketplace and network created just for them,” explained Padilla-Miller. “This platform, much like Upwork and Fiverr, provides media and marketing agencies, businesses, nonprofits and other organizations access to a network of creative talent."
UniCreatives differentiates from platforms like Upwork and Fiverr by connecting freelance services and collaboration to those intentionally seeking to hire and support developing talent affiliated to their community and university. These services offered by students will include videography, photography,audio,graphic design, writing, translation, and much more.
Padilla-Miller received seed funds from the OSU Advantage Accelerator to get UniCreatives off the ground and college students offering their creative services. Currently, the platform is in phase one or alpha stage, meaning that a prototype is still under development, however Padilla-Miller is looking to recruit beta testers starting November 1, 2024 for phase two. Interested beta users should be creative students or alumni looking to profile their work and skills, in addition to anyone in need of creative services. To sign up for free as a beta user, please visit: unicreatives.co.
UniCreatives is expecting to officially debut at OSU in 2025, and potentially regionally and nationwide in 2026.
Listen to why Jake Chamseddine, OSU Alumni and photographer, has some interesting perspectives on why UniCreatives would have been helpful for him as a student and how it would be helpful for him today.
