THSU ran short courses, typically two to five days long on a non-residential basis, which were provided free of charge to young people aged 11 to 25 across the borough of Tower Hamlets during school holidays.
Courses covered subjects at a higher level than young students would normally be able to access, such as Careers in the City, The Trading Floor, Photography, Driving Theory, First Aid, Maths without Calculators, Jewellery Design and Making, Bollywood Dance, Film Making, Kick & Thai Boxing, Cricket, Tourism and Psychology.
By 1997, Hackney, Brent, Newham, Islington and Southwark piloted their own programmes and in the next two years, other boroughs and other areas of the country followed suit.
The young participants of Tower Hamlets Summer University chose to call this project 'Summer Uni London'.
In 2010, THSU and Summer Uni London rebranded as Futureversity to help represent the nationwide expansion goals of the charity.