LIFI Futures: a bigger platform for young Leeds

Young LIFI launched in 2025 with a single, invitation-only schools event. It was the best thing we added last year, and it was one afternoon.

For LIFI26 it returns as LIFI Futures: a four-event strand built around the questions young people in Leeds are already asking. Who am I allowed to be? What happens after school? Who decides what counts as success?

Three of the four events are free and booked through schools, colleges and universities across the city. The fourth is open to everyone. Between them, they put hundreds of young people in the same room as broadcasters, employers, athletes and educators, not as an audience, but as the point.

The four questions LIFI Futures is asking this year

Why does no one talk about apprenticeships?

Wednesday 7 October, 11am to 12pm 

University isn’t the only route, and it never was. Apprenticeships, on-the-job training and the roads less advertised, put in front of the young people making those choices right now, by the people who took them and the people who hire.

Is maths the root of everything?

Wednesday 7 October, 12pm to 1.30pm | Quarry Theatre | Ticketed, on sale now

The one LIFI Futures event open to everyone. Celebrating Leeds’s designation as the UK’s first City of Maths, this panel drags maths out of the exam hall and into music, disease modelling, graphic design, construction and space exploration.

Speakers for the remaining LIFI Futures events will be announced in the coming weeks.

What no one told you about getting a job

Thursday 8 October, 11am to 12pm 

One in eight young people in the UK is not in education, employment or training. Behind that statistic sit assumptions about ambition, ability and worth that rarely survive contact with the young people themselves. Major regional employers and students take the label apart. Delivered in partnership with Leeds Illuminate Group.

How to be unapologetically you?

Friday 9 October, 12.30pm to 2pm | Quarry Theatre 

Growing up is hard enough without the constant pressure to look, act and live like everyone else. Between school, social media, influencers, friends and family expectations, it is easy to start doubting who you are.

This one is about owning your identity, living authentically and being confident in your own skin, because the things that make you different are the things that make you stand out. Expect honest conversations on body image, gender and sexuality, neurodiversity, disability, mental health, resilience and wellbeing.

BBC Newsround presenter Shanequa Paris hosts a panel bringing together dancer, model and disability advocate Tasha Ghouri, NHS GP, broadcaster and wellbeing expert Dr Radha Modgil, actor and trans rights campaigner Ash Palmisciano and former Leeds Rhinos captain and mental health campaigner Stevie Ward.

Speakers for the remaining LIFI Futures events will be announced in the coming weeks.

Why we’re doing it

Martin Dickson, Festival Director, said:

“Young LIFI was the best thing we added last year, and it was one event. LIFI Futures is now four events. Identity, apprenticeships, the NEET label, and maths. These are the conversations shaping what young people in Leeds think is possible for them, and they deserve the same stage, the same speakers and the same seriousness as everything else on the programme. Leeds is a city of many voices. Our younger ones are the most important for the future of this city.”

Bring your school, college or university

The three free LIFI Futures events are booked through education providers rather than individually. If you teach, lead or work with young people in Leeds and want to bring a group, get in touch.