How did the Competition come about?

Diogo Vasconcelos was a Portuguese leader who focused on fostering innovation to address some of the great societal challenges of our time. During his career he worked closely with the European Commission and others on issues such as globalisation, sustainability, climate change, urbanisation, democratic participation and healthcare.

Diogo sadly passed away in 2011 at the age of 43. To keep his ambitions alive, the European Commission established the European Social Innovation Competition to inspire entrepreneurs across the continent to continue developing ideas that tackle the challenges our society faces.

Each year, three €50,000 prizes are awarded for the most innovative projects designed to change the world for the better.

It’s quite something to receive feedback like this. When an idea is brewing and incubating, when a technology is new and requires multiple iterations, it can sometimes seem like a beneficial product is a long way off. In the space of just two years, we’ve entered and won the Legal Access Challenge, become an independent charity having previously been incubated by Mencap, and come through a pandemic.  The pace at which a seed of an idea can become a service that makes a difference to people’s lives is astonishing.

Winning the Legal Access Challenge

In April 2020, Access Social Care and Mencap won the Legal Access Challenge. Part of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) legal technology fund, the challenge was a £500,000 prize to bring forward innovative solutions to help individuals and small businesses gain greater access to the legal system, allowing them to understand and resolve their legal problems easier.

The idea for our entry to the challenge was born because every day, millions of older and disabled people are denied the social care they need. Local authorities struggle to meet their legal duties and provide the social care people have a right to. Unfortunately, many people in the UK cannot afford lawyers, forcing them to rely on limited legal aid.

Access Social Care started life within Mencap – the UK’s leading charity supporting people with a learning disability. As a team we provided (and continue to provide) expert legal advice to the many people that contact the charity each day about their social care needs – some with simple questions, some with very complex cases. The challenge we faced was ensuring that the finite resources of the legal team were being directed at the most complex of legal issues, whilst maintaining a high quality and prompt service for those simpler queries. We needed a solution that made accurate legal advice promptly available to as many people as possible, and a service that could grow over time to constantly improve the breadth of advice it could offer.

Access Social Care and Mencap’s winning solution was a chatbot particularly designed for the needs of people with a learning disability, harnessing machine learning to constantly improve and refine the advice that is available to users. The chatbot is capable of triaging cases, providing answers to the more routine questions, supporting contact centre staff to support simpler queries, and ensuring the more complicated cases are funnelled to the legal team.

READ MORE ABOUT GETTING CHALLENGE PRIZES RIGHT

Much more than money

As a start-up, winning the Legal Access Challenge has granted us a status that money couldn’t buy. The validation of Challenge Works and the Solicitors Regulation Authority means we are taken seriously; it’s a mark of quality that our Chatbot is a gamechanger. We were very new to the industry and the legal technology world – not only did participating grant us confidence in ourselves, it has resulted in the confidence of others.

In the last year, we have secured significant match funding from organisations like Comic Relief, the Baring Foundation, The Oak Foundation and the Community Justice Fund. Securing continued funding can be incredibly difficult for start-ups. If a new company (or charity) is to turn an idea into a product with impact, every small business like ours needs investment to scale. 

The transition from proof of concept to a product that is ready for market is a difficult process – for long-term business sustainability, this continuation in funding is vital. Whilst there is start-up funding available to explore new innovations like ours, our experience is that funding for continued development remains limited. We would really like to see more grant giving funders investing in continuation for technology solutions such as ours, broadening where investments are made.

Winning the prize was certainly a financial boost, but the additional expert support available through the Legal Access Challenge has been even more important. This included support from the SRA and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to help us understand our regulatory obligations, and, most valuable to the chatbot’s development, expert advice from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Its generous guidance during the challenge have proved invaluable when it has come to developing our rationale for data processing, to a point where we have been repeatedly praised about our use and understanding of data where our documentation has been used as an example for other charities working on tech solutions. Support from organisations and experts of this calibre is not easy to come by for a start-up; the workshops we took part in and the mentoring we received are valuable to this day.

A year like no other

When we developed the Chatbot and entered the Legal Access Challenge in early 2019, we had no idea of what awaited the world in 2020. The pandemic and its impact on social care made stark the need for solutions like ours.

Since winning, we have pressed ahead with developing and iterating the Chatbot to create a product that can help all charities, organisations and support groups working in the sector – many of which are too small to hope to be able to develop anything like it on their own.

Our biggest leap forward has been moving the Chatbot to an open-source platform. All along we have focused on creating a free legal advice service that complements the hard work of the dedicated people who work in social care. This move means in addition to helping people contacting Mencap, we can help many more besides.

There has been a 92% drop in legal aid cases since 2010. Without access to justice, people’s rights do not exist. This is what we sought to address with the Chatbot. 

Taking part in the Legal Access Challenge meant we have built a robust platform that works for people in need. Winning has elevated our reputation which in turn has helped us secure match funding investment. Importantly, in a relatively short period, we have released a product that is already helping us to fulfil our mission of making legal advice about social care available to all who need it.

Kari Gerstheimer is CEO and Miriam Valencia is Head of Operations of Access Social Care. Access Social Care provides free legal advice to people with social care needs, helping to achieve a better quality of life. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE LEGAL ACCESS CHALLENGE

The 2021 Impact Prize winner

As well as the three winners, the 2021 Impact Prize winner was also revealed to be MycoTEX, from The Netherlands. MycoTEX, which was a finalist in the 2020 competition – Reimagine Fashion, offers an award winning, all-in-one solution for fashion brands. They use an automated seamless production technology to create custom-fit products out of sustainable, vegan textiles made from mycelium (mushroom roots).

This groundbreaking manufacturing method solves major issues in the fashion industry: It reduces cost, waste, and labour-intensity of cut and sew operations; replaces plastics and leathers with compostable materials and improves the comfort and fit of fashion products.

A huge congratulations to all of this year’s winners and well done to all of the teams who took part in this year’s competition.

What happens now?

The Finalists will now receive further support over the coming weeks, with additional one-on-one expert coaching to provide them with additional knowledge and skills, helping them to prepare their projects for the Awards event.

In total, the finalists will receive an additional ten hours of personalised coaching per team across the finalist phase, allowing them to fine-tune their pitches for the final event on 8 December. All of the finalists and semi-finalists will be invited to attend the Award Ceremony along with the winner of the 2021 Impact Prize.

If you have questions, please contact us at: [email protected]

My vision

I’ve been on a mission for the last 10 years to try and help the next generation figure out their light-bulb moment. Some of the highlights have been creating the UK’s first Teen Run pop-up market in a 50,000 sq ft warehouse, winning the Queens Award for Enterprise Promotion and consulting for major brands, including Barclays, River Island, Facebook and Apple.

As with all competitions, there can only be one winner. However, it is what you do afterwards that makes a real difference. The lives and mindsets changed have no limit. Some of my biggest life lessons have come in the pit of failure or challenge – this is an important message that I strive to share. Below, I share some of the valuable life lessons I’ve picked up during lockdown.

Lesson One: The Future of Teenage Entrepreneurship is Bright

While young people are twice as likely to lose their jobs compared to their older counterparts during the pandemic, their future remains bright. As they say; “necessity is the mother of invention.” In fact, the number of teenagers setting up their own businesses is up tenfold since 2009. This is due to the rise of both technology and social media. If you have a mobile phone and a social media account, you are capable of  changing your life sooner than you think.

Lesson Two: Teens are Diving into New Strategies

More teens than ever are learning to package themselves and create products readily available to purchase. Apps like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram provide a platform to start putting yourself out there and monetizing your ideas.

Back when Supa Tuck was founded in 2012, there was no such thing as TikTok, and influencers weren’t mainstream yet. It wasn’t easy to make money online. Hence, teens were making some extra cash by setting up shops in school. Things have completely shifted since then, with sites like Shopify and Squarespace making it easier than ever to set up an eCommerce store within minutes.

A Manchester teen had her eyelash business explode once it went viral on TikTok. Her products got over 70,000 likes and 400,000 views. She now is in school and running her business full time.

An American has created and coded a speech app to enable his non-verbal sister to communicate. Like many, he didn’t want to rely on expensive communication apps, making this version free and accessible to all, and in doing so he is positively affecting many lives.

Teens all over the world are getting creative. You can too.

Good luck and remember to learn as you go, be motivated, and iterate the entire way through the entrepreneurial process.

What happens next?

The semi-finalists will now receive a comprehensive online package of support from experienced social innovators to help them develop their ideas further. This includes the Competition’s social innovation academies, two multi-day training events that connect semi-finalists to a wider community of European social innovators through a series of dedicated lectures , workshops and assignments.

Like last year, this year’s academies will take place online, offering an ambitious support  programme in a collaborative and digital format. Semi-finalists will also be paired with a personal coach for one-on-one mentoring. They will also have access to an online Pool of Experts for tailored advice on specific aspects of launching a social venture.

This will prepare them for the next stage of the competition, where they submit their extensive Development Plans to the Judging Panel. The Judges will then select 10 finalists and eventually the three winners, each of whom will receive €50,000. All of the finalists and semi-finalists will be invited to attend the Award Ceremony this autumn along with the winner of the 2021 Impact Prize.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL INNOVATION COMPETITION 2021

The barriers to ‘great careers support’

Of the 31 innovators supported by the CareerTech Challenge, 20 Prize finalists worked on building and testing new tools to make careers information, advice and guidance more accessible and tailored to the supply and demand for skills in local job markets. Their progress was documented and analysed through interviews by our evaluation partners, Learning and Work Institute providing a unique opportunity to understand the enablers and barriers for the development of ‘great careers support’. The research revealed an abundance of creativity among the innovators, and demonstrated the value of user testing, co-creation and partnerships with local stakeholders, such as FE colleges and employers. Yet it also uncovered a major challenge that is holding back innovation in the field – limited and inaccessible labour market data.

The deficiencies in the UK’s labour market data are illustrated by the experiences of the winners of the CareerTech Challenge Prize, the team developing Bob UK, a tool designed to provide instant, online careers advice and job recommendations based on information about local vacancies and the jobseeker’s skills. The developers attempted to source UK data that directly replicated data sources used to develop the version of Bob which has helped over 250,000 jobseekers in France. However, it became apparent that equivalent sources of data rarely existed. The Bob UK team was able to work around this issue by carefully combining alternative sources of data from a number of UK and non-UK sources.

Bob, the winning solution from the CareerTech Challenge Prize, curates a wide range of data to provide useful insights to jobseekers.

Many other innovators experienced similar barriers, finding that the publicly available data that could help people to make more informed decisions about their careers is often incomplete, difficult to use and poorly described. The impact of this is significant. A shocking insight from the report is that one solution enabled careers advisors to base course recommendations on labour market information for the first time. Prior to using this tool, such information was too time-consuming for careers advisors to uncover and analyse for it to be of use, and job seekers were given advice that was not based on employer demand for skills.

How better data can help deliver great career support

To address this issue of hidden and missing data and unleash the productivity-raising potential of better skills matching, the report  makes a series of recommendations, including:

• The creation of a central labour market data repository that collates publicly available information about the labour market.
• Public data providers should review the quality and accessibility of the data they hold, and make it easier for developers to use.
• The development of better skills and labour market taxonomies to facilitate consistency between sources and enhance data matching.

Nesta’ Data Analytics team has launched a number of initiatives that aim to fill gaps in the UK’s supply of labour market information:

• Creating a skills taxonomy: With funding from ESCoE, the team created the first open data-driven skills taxonomy for the UK. This allows us to track the demand for skills, as well as map the distribution of skills across the UK. We are currently updating the taxonomy and hope to publish the next version towards the end of this year.
• Mapping viable transitions for workers: In Mapping Career Causeways, supported by J.P. Morgan, the team used machine learning to measure the similarity in the skills and work activities required in more than 1,600 jobs. This information can be used to suggest ‘viable transitions’ to job seekers, based on their most recent role. The underlying algorithm can also identify the skills gap between any two jobs which can inform decisions around training. The code for this project is open and available on Github.
• Measuring automation risk: With funding from The Gatsby Foundation, the team provided the first known estimates of automation risk for apprenticeships. Policy recommendations included increasing awareness about the types of tasks that were found to raise risk (such as routine and repetitive activities) and those that lower risk (such as tackling unstructured problems in changeable environments).
• Providing free insights on skill demands: In partnership with the Department for Education, the team is creating an Open Jobs Observatory. The Observatory will contain free insights from online job adverts, with a focus on the skills requested by employers. The team is collecting the adverts with the permission of job sites. A pilot version of the Observatory will be launched this year.
• Identifying green jobs: The team’s next focus is developing a methodology for tagging green jobs. At present, the UK has no way of identifying individual jobs in green sectors. Developing this methodology is a necessary step in transitioning towards a greener economy.

As well as the CareerTech Challenge Prize, Challenge Works is continuing to support innovation which supports people adapt to a rapidly changing labour market:

• The Rapid Recovery Challenge to find and scale tools and services that improve access to jobs and money for people within the UK – with a specific focus on those hardest hit by the economic shock resulting from COVID-19. The £3 million Challenge is funded by Nesta, in partnership with JPMorgan Chase Foundation, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Money and Pensions Service.
• The European Social Innovation Competition includes a challenge prize to incentivise, support and reward social innovation that will help people and organisations identify, develop and strengthen the skills they will need to adapt and thrive in a changing world. The 2021 edition of the Competition, ‘Skills for tomorrow’ will award three €50,000 prizes for the best scalable social innovations that aim to contribute to job creation, growth and overall European competitiveness and power the European economy’s green and digital future.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE TECH TO CONNECT PRIZE AND THE OTHER EIGHT FINALIST TEAMS

Overcoming barriers to scale

Scaling innovation is challenging in any sector, often left till the end of the process whereupon it is revealed that the challenges of scale-up have not been duly planned for. When it comes to social and development issues, these challenges cannot be underestimated. To achieve genuine social impact at scale, we need to go far beyond the simple idea of rapidly replicating one universal solution for different users and settings, in the typical Silicon Valley model of scalability.

Rather, scaling innovation for development requires us to tackle the messy systems challenges around adoption, interoperability, policy and regulatory frameworks in different contexts. It may involve integrating solutions within existing services, whether in the public, private or voluntary sector, and fostering the social-ecological system that needs to be in place in order to implement these new solutions. This process often takes time and patience, involving multiple stakeholders with different priorities and resources. The end-user or beneficiary of an innovation is usually not the one who pays for or delivers a given solution, creating a complex web of relationships and power dynamics that must be navigated to allow the adoption of disruptive new ideas. It is the role of innovators to design solutions that can function within this ecosystem, but it is also the role of innovation funders and enablers to build the partnerships and collaborations needed to deliver scale.

This is exactly the approach that we have taken in designing the Ghana Science and Tech Explorer Prize. We know that to create a contextually appropriate version of the Longitude Explorer Prize in Ghana, we need to work with a range of partners and allow sufficient time frames to engage with policymakers, industry and other key stakeholders in the process. By dedicating this time to breaking down silos, sharing knowledge and building a collaborative environment for co-design between systems actors, we are setting the stage for a programme that can successfully scale within the existing context and create real benefits for thousands of young people.

Scaling the right solutions

We are all familiar with initiatives in the development sector that have been abandoned, from the infamous PlayPumps to Microsoft’s Digital Villages, wasting precious resources and losing trust in the process. So how do we ensure that we are scaling the right ideas in the first place – the ones that offer genuine impact and longevity?

One of the main pitfalls we see in innovation is starting with a solution looking for a problem, rather than starting by really understanding the problem and its context.  This is especially relevant when it comes to tackling the type of wicked problems we encounter in international development, where there is rarely one ‘silver bullet’ solution. A well designed challenge prize, based on thorough and extensive user-centred research, is one way of presenting a clear and defined challenge for innovators to work towards, whilst encouraging different types of solution.

Opening up a challenge to diverse solutions is an effective way of de-risking innovation for funders and governments, and delivering a range of interventions that actually work – especially important in the context of international development where the ‘move fast and break things’ mindset is not appropriate. Our current work with Global Affairs Canada on a prize to tackle plastic waste in Sub-Saharan Africa is an example of this approach, using the prize as an opportunity to seed a large number of ideas and different approaches that can further incentivise innovators to work on the challenge. In this way, a prize can effectively increase the chances of one or more of those innovations overcoming the ‘valleys of death’ to find a path to scale.

To ensure that these innovations will tackle the problems in question, they also need to be driven by and co-designed with people on the ground. Rather than viewing people affected by development challenges as beneficiaries, we need to acknowledge and support their potential as innovators who often have some of the best ideas for solutions. The Data Driven Farming Prize focused on building global-local partnerships, drawing on local expertise and lived experience to frame the problem, co-design the prize and develop solutions for smallholder farmers in Nepal. Likewise, the Fall Armyworm Tech Prize championed local innovators to ensure credibility and sustainability of solutions to identify, treat and track the incidence of fall armyworm for smallholder farmers in Africa.
ngeworks.org”>contact director Constance Agyeman.

A staged pathway to scale

The right structure of support is also vital to help innovation to scale. The FCDO Global Innovation Fund is structured with three stages of funding to pilot, test and scale solutions, giving innovators the opportunity to thoroughly test and evidence their solutions to ensure long-term impact. Likewise, the Million Cool Roofs Challenge adopted a step-wise approach of supporting pilot stage projects at the initial stages, before awarding the main $2 million prize for new business models that can rapidly scale up the deployment of solar-reflective roof technologies in the Global South. This prize is carefully designed to support a scaling approach that responds to local needs and contexts across different countries and use cases, recognising the fact that the cost and efficiency benefits of scaling innovations can be achieved at the same time as developing transferable solutions that can be adapted to local needs.

With a growing number of global challenges requiring our attention, Challenge Works is always looking for opportunities to use the challenge prize method to help scale innovative and effective solutions. This work requires systems actors from across the development, policy and innovation sector to collaborate and facilitate the pathways to adoption, enabling innovators to address our urgent crises and deliver benefits for more people across the world.

To find out more about our work in international development and opportunities to collaborate, contact director Constance Agyeman

Head back to the Mayor’s Resilience Fund main page

The five missions of Horizon Europe

Missions are meant to be “high-ambition, high-profile initiatives which will put forward concrete solutions to challenges facing European citizens and society”. The missions aim to be bold, ambitious and inspiring – to tackle the grand societal challenges of the EU and beyond – while also maintaining a clear, measurable, time-bound and realistic direction. While they are yet to reach their final formulation, the European Commission has selected five mission areas:

• Adaptation to Climate Change
• Cancer
• Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities
• Ocean, Seas and Waters
• Soil Health and Food

The introduction of missions represents a significant evolution from the Science with and for Society element of Horizon 2020 which recognised the need to complement scientific discovery with social awareness and responsibility, but did not go as far as to create the space for integrating societal dialogue into the process of giving direction to research and innovation. Therefore, the Horizon 2020 interim evaluation has concluded that there is a need to shift the programme away from the instrument-centred approach, toward a purpose and impact-driven philosophy.

Why a mission-based approach?

In this sense, missions can serve as an important mechanism to align the activities of the programme to broader EU priorities. This helps create synergies with policy, legislation, and other programme frameworks, directing research and innovation toward enabling high-level priorities such as the European Green Deal.

More importantly, however, a mission-based approach to innovation can act as a key mechanism to ensure legitimacy and public trust and, if executed right, increase the overall success of European innovation – whether that is defined as meeting societal challenges with appropriate solutions, or achieving global competitiveness.

Firstly, a mission orientation can set the right context for cross-disciplinary research.

Rather than specialising to meet the exigencies of individual funding programmes, broad missions can incentivise researchers and innovators to look beyond their silos and tackle common goals from multiple angles. Moreover, missions can open up the space for generating solutions to a more diverse array of actors, including entrepreneurs and civil society actors.

Secondly, missions can increase the legitimacy of research and innovation actions.

Beyond the intrinsic value derived from ensuring that funds and efforts are directed toward public good – with the awareness of its beneficiaries – buy-in from society can help fill the gap between discovery and systemic change, and help the transition from a ‘market-fixing’ approach toward ‘market-shaping’. This is crucial for some of the particularly complex problems that the current European Commission aims to tackle which rely not only on the development of new solutions, but require behaviour change, the diffusion of new social norms, and coordinated action at local, national and transnational levels.

The Covid-19 crisis could serve as a prime example for how important public buy-in is. While significant victories were achieved with vaccines being developed at an unprecedented speed, the EU also had to fight, in parallel, a wave of misinformation and disinformation that fed directly into the disconnect between society and evidence-based decision-making.

With a research and innovation framework that proactively addresses societal responses to these challenges and invites the public to act as a co-creator of solutions, the systemic impact of discoveries can be greatly enhanced.

Achieving this, however, entails more than raising awareness about research and innovation. For instance, the board of the oceans, seas and waters Horizon Europe mission (Mission Starfish 2030: Restore our Oceans and Waters) takes relevant steps in this direction, explicitly setting out to fill the knowledge and emotional gaps needed to spark public imagination and engagement on the topic through concrete actions such as literacy programmes or citizen science projects.

Finally, the outcome-oriented approach of missions can allow the EU to select the most appropriate combination of innovation methods according to the nature of the target issue.

Complex issues such as the Horizon Europe missions often require a mix of actions that allow for both top-down direction and bottom-up experimentation. Challenge prizes are a good example of how this can work – they are inherently outcome-driven, and can allow organisers to center their focus on the goal rather than the method. At the same time, the openness of challenge prizes creates opportunities for a wider array of innovators to generate solutions to the target problem, reducing the risk that funders often face when selecting a single innovator through more traditional approaches such as grants.

Ultimately, the introduction of missions has the potential to enable the EU research and innovation framework programme to go beyond its role as a platform facilitating cross-European collaboration, and instead direct that very cooperation toward tackling the grand challenges that transcend internal and external borders alike.

As news about deliberation on the five proposed missions is set to come in throughout the following months, how exactly this will be achieved, and where Horizon Europe will create opportunities for citizen engagement will become evident.

Joanna Beaufoy from Bayes Impact agreed that the inequality of information for job seekers is prevalent, but this inequality is also currently widely accepted. Bob wants to change that. Joanna mentioned that it can be difficult for job-seekers to find the information they need, let alone understand how to apply it to their own circumstance. . As the wealth gap grows, the need and the potential for information sharing in tech like Bob is huge, and this is only the beginning for the project. She says:

Watch to learn more about Bob’s innovative solution

What were the pros and cons of being involved in a challenge like this?

Although the pandemic threw everyone for a loop, and created difficulties in ways of working (for instance the two teams have never met in person), the support and guidance that the challenge and Challenge Works provided for the teams was deemed as invaluable.

Winning this prize means that the Bob UK team can now put more resources and confidence into their approach, as well as support their work financially.

What advice would you give to anyone participating in a prize process?

While the team was prepared to take the risks that they did, their biggest learning was around being flexible as the pandemic hit. While external influences impacted their work they also realised along the way that being flexible in general with the “challenges of the challenge” would also serve their work well.

Joanna stated as a turning point in the competition:

As both partners are relatively modest organisations, they learnt it was in their best interest in working towards a common goal to be open and collaborative, learning along the way.

At the end of the day, Bob aims to have a majority of their users understand the main challenges and resources to act on the barriers they face in the job market. As long as users understand what is standing in their way and what they can do to help themselves, then the Bob team knows they are making an impact. Another aim is to draw attention to gaps in the labour market, so there is more awareness around creating pathways that are accessible to job-seekers and so that others can benefit from open source tools like Bob.

Organisations with information or services they’d like recommended by Bob can contact Bob’s content team at [email protected], or read more about the technology on Bayes Impact’s website.

WANT TO USE BOB UK? CHECK THEM OUT NOW!

Winner: Bob – Bayes Impact and ACH

Bob is an automated online coach that gets crucial, life-changing employment advice to people who need it, quickly, easily and for free. Developed by non-profit Bayes Impact, Bob helps users understand how their skills can fit with those required by employers, and provide advice to help them improve their job application techniques. Job seekers can receive ongoing digital coaching via email, text and an app that delivers personalised motivational support, helping its users to feel continuously supported.

Through the Prize, Bayes Impact has been collaborating with ACH, a social enterprise providing integration and employment support to refugees in Bristol, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry, to test their solution and adapt it for a UK market.

Runner-up: Would You Rather Be – Would You Rather Be

Would You Rather Be is an AI-power app to help people find career happiness. Users answer 10 minutes of quick-fire questions, and the platform calculates the careers they’d thrive in. Users are then presented with hyper-personalised pathways into each, allowing them to explore the different qualifications or experience needed to get into a given career, and compare the time, cost and available funding for each.

Since the start of the Prize, the app has had over 40,000 users, with 84% saying it helped them discover or get into a career they would enjoy.

Why was the CareerTech Challenge Prize needed?

The CareerTech Challenge Prize was launched in October 2019, as part of a £5.75 million partnership between Nesta, Challenge Works, and the Department for Education. The programme initially focused on supporting adults in England most at risk of rapid labour market change – specifically, those without a degree and working in sectors such as retail, manufacturing and transport which are expected to be widely affected by automation. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, the scope of the programme was expanded to include those put on furlough or recently made redundant.

Although people are often aware of these shifts at the macro level, it can be difficult for workers in an at-risk role to know if or when their own role could be automated, or the skills they should be developing to ‘future-proof’ their positions. Research by Onward suggests that although 64% of people believe that much of the work currently done by humans will eventually be done by robots and computers, only 9% of people feel their own jobs are threatened a ‘great deal’ by automation.

The role of data

A major focus of the prize was investigating innovative uses and sources of labour market information – data which can shed light on the past, current or future state of the labour market. There’s no shortage of this data – government statistics, official surveys, academic research or even data collected from job search sites can all provide a wealth of insight into the skills which are in demand in a given area.

However, this insight is often inaccessible to those who would benefit most. The CareerTech Challenge Prize called for solutions which could proactively engage with workers in at-risk roles, encouraging them to reflect on their careers and explore new possibilities, while providing straightforward, actionable and locally relevant recommendations to help them plan.

More information

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be sharing more information about our winner and runner-up and their journey bringing their solutions to life. In the meantime, you can read about all of our finalists, or explore all of the innovations supported through the CareerTech Challenge in this interactive storyboard.

Challenge Works is also delivering the Rapid Recovery Challenge, to support those most affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19 – you can read about their semi-finalists here. Alternatively, consider joining our Rapid Recovery Challenge Network to help connect our innovators to the communities most in need of their solutions.

Eligibility Criteria

Entries received by the relevant deadline will be assessed against the eligibility criteria set out below. Entries which do not meet the eligibility criteria shall not be accepted.

Late entries will not be accepted.

The eligibility criteria are final and the Greater London Authority (GLA) reserves the right to refuse any entry that does not meet the eligibility criteria or comply with the terms and conditions.

Eligibility criteria:

• A London-based team, with a registered company/charity in the UK
• Sole traders can apply but must show VAT registration, public liability insurance or employer’s liability insurance, and audited accounts or a profit and loss statement
• You may enter as a single organisation or as a partnership, however partnerships must nominate a lead organisation (that is a registered entity)
• Entries will not be accepted from individuals
• You can submit an entry for more than one challenge, but you must submit a separate application for each challenge
• We cannot fund activity which is party-political in intention, use, or presentation nor to support or promote religious activity
• Employees of Nesta, Greater London Authority, Resilience Partners or organisations working on the Prize, and their immediate families, are not eligible to enter
• We are unable to accept entries from any organisation that is currently: bankrupt, in liquidation, having their affairs administered by the courts or entered into an arrangement with creditors

Where possible and applicable, we encourage entrants to explore making the end product or solution open source, open standard, interoperable or open license, as set out in the Emerging Technology Charter, to ensure that it is accessible and to maximise adoption across the economy. This is not a requirement for entry, but is looked favourably upon.

Assessment criteria

Eligible entries will be assessed against the assessment criteria set out below in order to determine the winners of the Challenge awards. The Authority’s decision on the selection of winners and amount of the Challenge awards (including in relation to queries on the assessment process) is final. The Authority will receive recommendations from the Challenge judging panel which it will take into consideration when making its decisions. Correspondence will not be entered into. The Authority may at its sole discretion decide not to award any funding.

Applications to all challenges will be assessed against the same five criteria:

1. Suitability (pass/fail)

• Is the proposed solution in scope and aligned with the challenge objectives? (pass/fail)
• The proposed solution is not yet deployed at scale. (pass/fail)

2. Impact (20%)

• Will the solution make a difference to the target beneficiaries? (10%)
• Is it scalable, transferable, adaptable to other contexts? (10%)

3. Innovation (10%)

• Does the solution expand beyond existing best practice? Is it different or better than what’s currently on the market?

4. Feasibility (40%)

• Does the entrant have a plausible project plan and the capabilities to execute it (long-term)? (20%)
• Is the solution technically feasible? (5%)
• Can the initial proposed project realistically be delivered within the challenge budget and timescales? (10%)
• Has this solution been designed with a clear understanding of end users’ needs? (5%)

5. Capability (30%)

• Does this solution have a team behind it with the relevant track record, skills, experience to achieve success? (20%
• Has the team identified and mitigated significant risks? (10%)

Please note that at the end of Delivery Phase 1 of the Fund (see timeline), you will submit an updated application which will be assessed against the same five criteria outlined above. Should you be successful in being selected for Delivery Phase 2, you will receive up to £40,000 in funding and will need to adhere to these funding terms and conditions.

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The meaning of Career

All of us have experienced the imposition of lockdown as an initial shock to the system, whether it made us feel anxious, stressed, lonely, or all of the above. We have had to make adjustments – both big and small – to our everyday lives. This is especially apparent in our everyday working lives, where we are having to adjust to working from home and homeschooling our kids at the same time, while making big changes to the way we manage our day-to-day from inside our homes. Career support has never been needed more, but what does having a career mean right now?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the impact of the pandemic are changing the meaning of what a  “career” is. Massive change is underway in how work is done, the environments in which people work and ways of finding a job that suits particular interests and needs. Contemporary career or livelihood conversations often include: “Where are the jobs?” “What’s involved in working in certain sectors or jobs?” “How do I find information I can trust?” How can I set up my own business?” and, most importantly; “Where can I go for career support, if needed?”

New forms of digital communication have recreated “in-person” experiences. Video conferencing, zoom calls, using Facebook, LinkedIn, and/or Instagram enable individuals and groups to connect socially and in a work context. Mobile phones, the internet, and big open datasets have created unprecedented opportunities to leapfrog into new forms of digital careers support. Think of CiCi the bot, which can remember where you left the conversation. When you decide to return, there’s no need to repeat your story and start all over again – unless you specifically ask for a fresh start. With permission, the bot could also share the online career conversation transcript and action plan with the human adviser saving time and energy.

The role of data in careers guidance

Research and practice show that access to accurate and timely labour market information (that is, data about jobs, skills and employment) is important in finding new jobs and training and in planning careers. But accurate labour market information (LMI) can be tricky to source, especially during a pandemic. Much of the existing LMI data is based on historical trends which do not reflect the current reality of the labour market. LMI is most powerful when data sources can be linked together, but this requires adherence to classification standards. The same applies to training course information which seldom can be searched for successfully by a job title. This sets a new challenge – sourcing LMI at a local and regional level for adults to use in their search for suitable opportunities.

Crowd-sourcing from professionals in the field is one option to be explored. For instance, local networks of careers advisers, employability advisers, outplacement specialists and business associations could pool their knowledge on which businesses might have changing hiring needs, new open day opportunities or expansion plans. This could help individuals tap into sources of information about jobs that are not necessarily published online, or to prepare for upcoming opportunities in advance, increasing their chances of success and the companies’ chance of finding the right match. No one knows for sure how many jobs aren’t published, but many experts argue it’s significant, perhaps as much as 60% of the market for some roles.

Chatbots – a piece of the careers advice puzzle

OECD et al (2021) research shows that during the pandemic, careers and employability professionals across the world have adapted and transformed their work. They have discovered more inclusive and innovative ways of using technology to good effect (Cedefop, 2020 (pdf)). Examples include: distance and e-based careers support policies and practices, delivered either by telephone, online 1:1 interviews or group webinar sessions, virtual career fairs, virtual work experience, virtual internships, career podcasts and ‘careercraft’ gaming. A natural extension to this work is the use of innovative chatbots that provide careers information and advice 24/7, at a time and place best suited to individuals’ needs.

We believe humans and AI ‘chatbots’ can work well together. The term chatbot is synonymous with text conversation but is growing quickly through voice communication e.g., “Alexa, what time is it?” (Other chatbots are also available!) There is an oversimplified notion that the use of AI and machine learning is a ‘disruptive force’ for today’s workers – replacing jobs or transforming them beyond reach. But bots can be a ‘force for good’ when situated in a combined social and professional support context.

It is not good enough to have chatbots designed only by tech experts. Content needs to be based on human behaviour and conversations. Social conversations that take place when individuals search for meaningful learning and work produce a narrative. Conversational modelling is an important task in natural language processing, as well as machine learning. Like most important tasks, this is challenging. Some conversational models have been focused on particular domains and built using hand-crafted rules, such as booking hotels or recommending restaurants. But for something as complex and often intensely personal as searching for opportunities to improve their income and livelihoods, people need to access curated information in an environment they trust, with access to a trained professional to help contextualise, challenge and act on the information if they want it.

Social technology – a human-centred approach

We argue that a shift from a longstanding ‘disruptive technology’ discourse is essential. Instead, new forms of ‘social technology’ can be achieved by practitioners co-designing and developing chatbots with their customers at a grassroots level. This form of anthropology has new importance in the context of today’s pandemic and rising unemployment. Designing innovative digital solutions this way can ensure relevant careers support mechanisms are available that people from all backgrounds can use in their everyday lives.

By observing and capturing human preferences and behaviours, this allows for the collection of information about social relationships, ‘norms’, expectations, beliefs and values in a community. Examining and observing these domains through a social technology lens can be achieved best through co-development work with adults and the practitioners who support them in local communities.

Social technology empowers practitioners to adjust their practice using a chatbot as a ‘state of the art’ solution. This allows them to spend more time with customers who need more in-depth support including those with low or no digital skills.

The bots may be coming – but fear not! We advocate the use of AI and social technology in careers and employability support services. In today’s world, no-one should feel alone in their search for meaningful learning and work.

CiCi are finalists in the CareerTech Challenge Prize – a joint project between Challenge Works and the Department for Education, aiming to improve access to data-driven careers advice and guidance.

Applications for resilience partners are now closed

For full details of the Mayor’s Resilience Fund, visit Tech London

Tech London Resilience

Promoting Black employment

Kike Oniwinde, Founder and CEO of UK start-up BYP Network, has created a platform to address a major structural barrier: Black underemployment. Launched in 2016, BYP Network connects Black professionals with each other for networking, and with corporations for job opportunities.

It is a shared, collective experience of many Black children to be told by their parents: ‘you have to work twice as hard to get half as much’. After decades of effort, unfortunately, evidence still proves this to be true. Research from Nuffield College has shown that with identical CVs, Black job seekers are required to send out twice the number of applications as their white counterparts in order to get a positive response – demonstrating that things have barely changed since the 1960s. This is an issue faced by most Black workers, including graduates, who have been attending university at higher rates than their white counterparts for the last 12 years. Despite this, they are less likely to secure employment after graduation and are less likely to be promoted or hold senior positions, due to bias and limited access to ‘the right’ networks and opportunities.

Creating visibility of Black role models at all levels in all industries, BYP facilitates mentoring and up-skilling for its global community of over 50,000 members. Their partnerships with over 200 businesses serve to act as a bridge to the Black community, whilst they hold those companies accountable for genuine organisational change.

Grand Prize winners of the Fall Army Worm Tech Challenge, The Fall Armyworm Virtual Advisor is an interactive solution that provides knowledge on how to identify, scout, and treat fall armyworm to its users. The tool is integrated into Farm.ink’s award-winning mobile service, Africa Farmers Club, an online group and chatbot that enables more than 150,000 farmers across Africa to find information about farming.

Supporting Black business communities

Of the 5.9 million UK businesses, only 0.75 per cent are Black-owned, although Black people account for 3.3 per cent of the population. This is despite the fact that ethnic minority early stage entrepreneurial activity has trended at almost double that of their white counterpartsin the recent past. To enable more innovations within the Black community, this disparity needs addressing, as a study by the Innovation Caucus shows that 59 per cent of Black and ethnic minority entrepreneurs are motivated to find innovative solutions to the disadvantages their communities face. However, the study also found that they lack access to culturally representative business support networks which in turn limits access to peer support, knowledge and contact sharing; and relatable role models, mentors and sponsors who could provide advice and guidance.

Social innovators such as Deborah Okenla, founder of YSYS (Your Start Up, Your Story), have emerged to fill the gap and increase access to support for Black and ethnic minority founders. Starting as a WhatsApp group in 2017, YSYS has helped over 10,000 diverse people advance in tech through their pre-accelerator programme and tech talent network.

Dr Dexter J.A. Penn, Founder and CEO of Kalgera, who was a finalist in the 2020 Open Up Challenge designed a platform that uses neuroscience and AI to detect and predict financial vulnerability to help prevent fraud.

Another example is Foundervine, founded by Izzy Obeng in 2018. Foundervine is on a mission to remove the social barriers to entrepreneurship, helping over 2,000 diverse future leaders with entrepreneurial ventures through start-up and scale-up acceleration programmes.

Funding Black business

Whilst support and community is important, funding is crucial. Banks are more likely to reject loan applications for Black-owned businesses; and with Venture Capitalists giving only 1 per cent of their funding to Black founders, it’s understandable why a recent report by 10×10 & Google for Start-ups found that 88 per cent of Black founders have self-funded their start-up.

London-based, Black-owned VC, Impact X have formed to counter these statistics, funding under-represented entrepreneurs who demonstrate an ability to positively impact lives globally. Pioneer Demi Ariyo’s venture, Lendoe, has been creating access to fair finance by partnering with community lenders;  disbursing close to £1 million in loans to predominantly Black, early-stage businesses in the UK since 2018.

Innovative funding models have also emerged from British Nigerian, Jermaine Craig, who founded Kwanda. Modelled on the traditional practice of collective finance in Black communities (Pardnas), this digitally enabled collection pot for supporting Black communities currently has over 2,500 ‘villagers’ pledging funds monthly. With an equal vote, voice and full transparency – due to its open ledger –  ‘villagers’ determine how grants are distributed.

These are only a few examples. There are many Black-led organisations taking action to tackle persistent economic inequalities by harnessing the value of their collective lived experience and removing barriers for others like them to succeed. The power of these changemaker stories have the potential to not only shift the way those outside the Black community sees it, but also how the Black community sees itself; catalysing exponential empowerment and growth. Representation matters, so we must elevate these stories in order to achieve sustainable impact, whilst listening, enabling and partnering with Black innovators and networks who know what they need and how it should be delivered.

These are the headlines we see in the news this year that have now become daily defaults in the aftermath of COVID-19.

The impact on workers is not only destructive to their economic livelihoods, but to their overall health and well-being.

Confused. Lost. Ashamed. Crushed.

These are the words we hear from workers impacted by layoffs, many of whom break into tears as they tell us about one of the most devastating experiences of their lives. On top of a psychological burden, 83% of laid of workers have a higher chance of health conditions, and sadly, are even more likely to commit suicide.

The impact of layoffs also extends well beyond the time of being handed the pink slip. Research from Harvard shows that 20 years later, laid off workers still have 20% lower incomes than their peers, and behavioral scientists have concluded that it takes longer to recover from the pain of unemployment than from losing a loved one.

An even less spoken about reality is the impact a round of layoffs has on workers who remain with the company. Remaining workers end up with 41% lower job satisfaction, 20% lower job performance, and 31% higher voluntary turnover. Layoffs often have a negative ripple effect on morale, productivity, and retention that leads to a massive hit to the bottom line.

Every one of us knows intuitively that layoffs, as they happen today, are broken and often inhuman. We are also now realizing that with increasing business disruption and automation, layoffs are not going anywhere and may even increase in frequency in intensity. The Brookings Institute predicts that a quarter of the workforce are vulnerable to being laid off due to increased automation efforts, which have only been further accelerated by companies during the pandemic.

So the question is — in a world where business leaders are reimagining every part of their employee lifecycle, why are layoffs still as destructive and inhuman as 30 years ago?

The Impact Sector’s Opportunity & Responsibility to Protect Livelihoods

Leaders in government, philanthropy, and impact investing can and must act to change this reality. Almost everything in the impact world boils down to either life or livelihood and work is one of the most significant contributors to livelihood for people around the world.

Layoffs in particular provide a unique high-impact leverage point in the system. They are very real human experience crossing borders and communities with very real quantifiable costs to the individual and society at large. It is also one of the unique opportunities where impact dollars can catalyze and complement private sector investments.

Focusing on the very visceral problem of layoffs also helps avoid further downstream overloading of public employment services and health systems while building the foundation for further upstream interventions to help companies and societies proactively reskill and upskill their employees for future jobs and skills.

The insights learned from the work on this challenge can then be replicated across many other work transition use cases (youth, veterans, refugees and immigrants, formerly incarcerated).

Layoffs: An Eroded Social Contract, a Taboo Culture, and a Lack of Empathy

For most of the 20th century, there was an implicit social contract between companies and their workers of a company’s responsibility to maintain its workers’ employment, whereby mass layoffs were “a sign of corporate failure and a violation of acceptable business behavior” as author Louis Uchitelle described in his book The Disposable American. It was not until the 1980’s when GE chairman Jack Welch began popularizing and normalizing the idea of mass layoffs as a sign of corporate competitiveness.

In the past decade, companies have adopted numerous innovative talent initiatives across every part of their employee lifecycle to begin adapting to the future of work. Recruiting processes have been revamped and optimized to ensure a positive experience for even rejected candidates, as leaders have understood the lasting impact the experience can have on the company’s brand perception. Investments in employee perks and benefits have skyrocketed as companies have understood the tangible implications on employee satisfaction, productivity, and engagement. And corporate learning solutions have been at the forefront of boardroom agendas as executives grapple with the need to equip employees with the skillsets of tomorrow.

But even the most innovative and future-focused companies who have re-imagined every other aspect of the talent function almost never mention layoffs, even though they are a reality in every one of their businesses.

For too long, layoffs have been too taboo to discuss. Personally, laid off workers often feel lonely, ashamed, and stigmatized, putting an undue burden of responsibility on their own shoulders even when a decision to restructure the business or a shock from an event like COVID-19 had nothing to do with their performance.

When asked about rethinking layoffs, Zabeen Hirji, former CHRO of Royal Bank of Canada and Deloitte’s Executive Advisor on Future of Work says “Unlike other parts of the talent and skills agenda, most executives have not personally experienced layoffs and perhaps the missing piece in this puzzle is empathy.”

But despite its taboo history and the lack of empathy that some may have for the experience of a laid off worker, all business leaders must grapple with the fact that layoffs may increase in the coming years and it will be their choice if they continue layoffs in their current destructive form.

It is far past due that we talk about layoffs, about the deep impact they have on people, their families, our businesses, and our communities and begin the work of reimagining them as we have with every other element of the employee lifecycle.

Reimagining Solutions through AI-Powered Outskilling

Perhaps ironically, the solution of how to reimagine layoffs and better equip affected workers for the next step in their career may be powered by the same element that is causing many of the layoffs in the first place: artificial intelligence.

Imagine, for a moment, a world where every single worker whose job is impacted by automation, disruption, or external shocks like COVID-19 was supported to land softly in their next opportunity through a personalized, AI-powered journey that:

1. ‘Locates’ You: Parses your resume to understand your past learning and work experiences, infers your skills based on your experiences, and profiles your interests, personality, and career preferences

2. Recommends ‘Destinations’: Uses a combination of your 360 profile, skill and experience requirements of occupations, as well as real-time labour market information like demand, automation predictions and salary to recommend career paths for you to consider

3. Creates a Personalized ‘Roadmap’ to Get You There: Uses an AI engine trained on millions of data points to craft a roadmap with personalized learning and job matches which continue to improve as the platform gets to know you better

Our platform, FutureFit AI, is one such solution that acts as an AI-powered GPS for career transitions like outskilling. We have taken millions of resume and job posting data points, built a robust marketplace of learning opportunities and other support services, and created a system of human and virtual support to ensure laid off workers have all the resources they need to succeed.

Our team realizes though that we are only one of the many solutions that should exist as part of this reimagination of layoffs. In one case study, Harvard researchers outlined how Nokia laid off an entire manufacturing plant in 2008 without any proactive planning or support, and it ended up costing them $85,000 per employee. But then in 2011, the Chairman revamped their approach and introduced a “Bridge” program that provided multiple pathways for workers to identify their next opportunity inside or outside the company. The innovative program reduced costs per employee by over 90%, while employee satisfaction jumped to 85%, even among employees that were let go.

We anticipate and encourage even more solutions being introduced as business leaders address this destructive part of the employee lifecycle. AI-powered outskilling provides executives with the opportunity not only to do good by their people but also turn transitioning workers into brand ambassadors by helping them grow their careers, build a brand that attracts future talent through a commitment to take care of people, and reduce brand and legal risk.

As evidenced by the recent collaboration between MasterCard’s Center for Inclusive Growth and Rockefeller Foundation to set up data.org, one of the most promising areas in social change is extending the power of data science to societal challenges. Layoffs, because of how well-defined they are as a problem as well as their very quantifiable success metrics, present a powerful opportunity for bringing together data, technology, and impact.

It’s time for the impact sector to adopt this abandoned child.

About the author

Hamoon Ektihari is the CEO of FutureFit AI, a finalist in the CareerTech Challenge Prize. FutureFit AI uses AI to help companies and governments rethink workforce transitions and layoffs. Hamoon can be found online on LinkedIn.

About the CareerTech Challenge Prize:

The CareerTech Challenge Prize is a joint project between Challenge Works and the Department for Education, aiming to improve access to data-driven careers advice and guidance. You can read more about the other Finalists on the Prize page.

Challenge Works’ challenge prize practice guide categorises these results into three impacts – (1) incentivising breakthrough innovations (2) helping innovators thrive and (3) unlocking systemic change.

Canada has explored all three impacts through their portfolio of challenges to date:

(1) The Canadian Government used the Drug Checking Technology Challenge to incentivize the development of breakthrough innovations. Launched in 2018 by Health Canada, the challenge is a response to the opioids crisis. The challenge aims to accelerate the improvement of drug checking technology to allow the community of people who use drugs and those who support them to make more informed decisions based on the composition of a drug and to reduce harm. The challenge successfully attracted new ideas and innovators; most of the applicants to the challenge were new to Government of Canada funding^[1].

(2) The Women in Cleantech Challenge was launched to help women cleantech innovators thrive. Only 5% of technology companies in Canada are founded by women; therefore, in 2018 Natural Resources Canada launched the challenge with the explicit aim of increasing women tech founders. Women developing technologies to tackle energy and environmental challenges are competing for the $1m final award. They are also receiving business advice and technical and financial support through a customised accelerator hosted by MaRS Cleantech, including the opportunity to work with federal labs and researchers.

(3) Julie Greene the Impact and Innovation Unit’s Lead of Capacity and Partnerships, explores how challenges can unlock systemic change in her blog “Before and Beyond Solutions: How Can Challenge Prizes Help Advance Broader Policy Objectives?” She explains how the Canadian Government has used challenges to communicate and advance broader priorities and define space for innovation.

Canada isn’t the only government adding challenge prizes to its toolkit; there’s been a rebirth of challenges as of late. The United States Government’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has turned to challenge prizes instead of conventional means (like grants and procurement) because they encourage thinking outside the box and broad participation. They’ve also found the economics make sense: “Prize purses are paid out only if someone succeeds, and in many cases, the amount of time and money invested by multiple teams as they vie for the prize exceeds the size of the prize purse itself”^[2]. The European Union has drawn on Mariana Mazzucato and her mission oriented innovation policy work to develop their five research and innovation missions, Horizon Europe and the related Horizon Prizes. Here in the UK, the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) sponsored the formation of Challenge Works in 2012. Our team has subsequently run 35 challenges, piloting the method to tackle a wide range of problems.

Challenge Works has the pleasure of guiding and supporting the Canadian Government’s extensive programme of challenge driven innovation.

Our team works in partnership with the Impact and Innovation Unit (IIU) as they co-design challenges with government departments. These departments are using challenges, alongside more traditional tools, to meet their mandates and achieve their existing policy objectives.

Using this model since 2017, Impact Canada has launched 10 challenges (with more in the pipeline), making up a portfolio of over $700 million in funding to solutions best meeting their challenge prizes’ desired outcomes and contributing to policy objectives.

Impact Canada is running these challenges on a broad array of topics, tackling components of the climate crisis, housing affordability, food waste, the opioid epidemic and others. They’ve proven that challenges can be an effective tool on social, economic and environmental topics, provided (1) the problem is well defined (2) there’s benefit to opening up the problem to a wider pool of innovators (3) these innovators will be incentivised to participate (4) there’s benefit to accelerating progress and (5) solutions will be adopted. (We call these the five “green light criteria”). If these criteria aren’t met, more traditional grant and procurement processes are likely the right fit.

Working with the IIU, Challenge Works has had the pleasure of seeing the Canadian Government’s challenge prizes work toward their desired impacts – while also impacting government itself. Working on these projects has empowered departments to learn new skills, be creative, take new approaches and (at times) navigate complicated processes to make things happen. As a Canadian myself, it’s been exciting to see. By being a leader in outcomes based funding and showing a federal government can “do something different”, my hope is that Canadian institutions (both in and out of government) will become even more receptive to using wider innovative methods for the good of Canadians.

But what’s the secret to Impact Canada’s success? Which parts of their model should other innovation-focused governments consider?

With the launch of Impact Canada, the Canadian Government elected to strategically deploy challenge prizes, and other outcomes-based methods, as part of its arsenal to tackle complex problems and deliver results for Canadians. This centralised, joined-up approach has been especially effective because of Impact Canada’s dedication to the following:

Investing in capacity development

The IIU supports partnering departments to “learn by doing”; each department takes ownership of its challenge prize design and delivery. When a department expresses interest in running a challenge, the IIU will host an introductory meeting. Often in partnership with Challenge Works, the IIU is then available to guide the department through the application, approval and challenge development process. We share learning from our respective experiences and mistakes and can provide extra hands to pick up particular tasks.

The IIU is now working to codify its challenge prize method and learning into a shareable resource. In addition, there could be great benefit in building connections between now-experienced departmental delivery teams and those starting out.

Building dedicated time and resources

In addition to developing capacity, the IIU has made sure to build in the required time and resources to design and deliver high quality challenges. They recognise effective challenge prizes, being used to address important policy objectives, cannot be completed side-of-desk. Therefore, they are vigilant about committing a realistic timeline to the rigorous design of challenges – often a year, although this may reduce as more learning and procedures are codified. They encourage and empower departments to build formal project teams with dedicated project leads. They developed the Impact Canada Fellowship programme which recruits subject-matter and technical experts to help foster innovation in the public service. Challenge prize Fellows are placed directly into department delivery teams, to work in tandem with Impact Canada and build departmental skills and capacity.

Earning senior department buy-in

The IIU works with departments to understand why and where challenge prizes make sense. This understanding, in addition to the “stamp” of Privy Council Office approval (the Privy Council is widely known for its rigorous analytical and challenge functions) can help earn buy-in from departments’ senior stakeholders. This buy-in has been assisted by the success of early best-in-class examples, such as Drug Checking Technology Challenge. Awareness of a high profile challenge prize, addressing a high profile issue, led by a high profile department can help pave the way for future challenges.

Focusing on centralised impact evaluation

The IIU has developed a robust method for evaluating the impact of its challenges, testing the results of each project against its desired objectives and outcomes. Doing this from the centralised position of the IIU allows for the systemic and consistent trialling and improvement of the challenge prize method horizontally across government. At the first stage, the IIU will use existing administrative data to understand how Challenge applicants and semi-finalists perform over time, compared to those who don’t apply. In time, the IIU should have the ability to compare the impact of challenges to alternative funding methods. This is not the case, for example, in the UK public sector where the use of challenge prizes is fragmented and cumulative learning is difficult.

Providing both social and technical permissions

Building Impact Canada’s centre of expertise, the IIU, inside the Privy Council Office created top-down support for new outcomes-based models like challenge prizes. And beyond these “social permissions”, Impact Canada ensured there were “technical permissions” like new Terms and Conditions “…built in a flexible manner to support departments in their experimentation with prizes, challenges, micro-funding and other outcomes-based and innovative programming approaches”.

The right team and mindset

IIU team members are selected for their innovative mindsets, openness and dedication to change. They’re a group willing to adapt and improvise, they’re comfortable being uncomfortable and they understand there’s no precedent for their role; they’re “building the boat while sailing”. Partnering government departments have demonstrated similarly impressive values and skillsets. Working with the IIU and its partners, our Challenge Works team has been impressed by their determination and resilience. It’s easy to see the social and logistical barriers to doing something different. Yet, we’ve watched these teams relentlessly come back to the question “what will create the best results for Canadians?” and tirelessly drive toward their answer.

Moving forward, governments need to update their arsenals with new tools and methods. Best said by Rodney Ghali, Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet of the Impact and Innovation Unit, “our collective perception of risk is not calibrated appropriately. We shouldn’t equate new with risky. Rather, we need to constantly question status quo, understand the risks of maintaining it, and recognise when we need to responsibly test something new”^[3].

To read more about what the Canadian Government’s Impact and Innovation Unit does and how they do it, have a look at their annual report.

[1] Section 3.1.2 (a), Impact & Innovation Unit 2018-2019 Annual Report

[2] Prize Challenges, Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

[3] Foreword, Impact & Innovation Unit 2018-2019 Annual Report

Photo by bantersnaps on Unsplash

The Runners Up are: Mirthy and the Chatty Cafe Scheme

Mirthy is a web platform to enable older adults to stay active whilst remaining independent at home, by connecting under-utilised communal spaces in retirement housing schemes with those people looking for social clubs.

The Chatty Cafe Scheme reduces loneliness and gets people talking by encouraging venues to designate a Chatter & Natter table, via their web application. Chatty Cafe already has partnerships with Costa and Sainsburys, and 73 other venues have joined through the website since January 2020.

As Runners Up of the Challenge, both Mirthy and the Chatty Cafe Scheme will receive £75,000 prizes.

Pargiter Trust Grant Winner is Music Memory Box

An additional grant of £25,000 from The Pargiter Trust was awarded to Music Memory Box, an innovative kit to support and connect people with dementia and their loved ones. It combines sensors, sentimental objects and photographs to link to songs, helping to unlock and recall memories in a simple and tactile way.

The Tech to Connect Challenge was launched to help civil society in England develop their early stage ideas for projects that combat social isolation by utilising technology to foster more or better interactions between people. The Challenge was funded by DCMS and delivered by Challenge Works with support from the Developer Society. 10 finalists have each received a £25,000 grant to use in the development of their prototypes.

Research conducted to mark the launch of the Challenge revealed eight in ten (82%) people think more needs to be done to ensure there are alternatives to high-cost lenders and 75% believe not-for-profit, community lenders need more support to succeed.

The three winning partnerships have highly credible and effective solutions which all have the potential to impact many financially vulnerable people across the UK who use credit to pay for everyday household expenses, and often struggle to access fair, affordable credit. The winning partnerships are:

Capital Credit Union with Nivo and Soar

A mobile app using the latest digital financial technology to make it easier for people to join and engage with a credit union, giving new audiences – particularly financially excluded and younger people – the opportunity to save and gain access to affordable credit.

Fair for You with EML and Lending Metrics

A revolving loan facility to provide buffer credit specifically for an additional frozen food shop in school holidays, when low income households often using high cost short term credit to cover spikes in grocery costs when children do not have school dinners provided. A pilot is being trialled with a leading supermarket.

Police Credit Union with Credit Kudos

A reward loan solution that uses open banking to monitor a borrower’s behaviour and reduce the interest rate they pay over time as they develop healthy financial habits – helping those in the police, armed forces and other protective services with a poor credit rating to access affordable credit.

The winners were chosen from six finalists who, as well as being given an initial grant of £150,000, have also been supported by us and HM Treasury to develop their solutions by providing non-financial assistance such as network events and legal support.

Research conducted to mark the launch of the Challenge revealed eight in ten (82%) people think more needs to be done to ensure there are alternatives to high-cost lenders and 75% believe not-for-profit, community lenders need more support to succeed.

For more information, visit affordablecreditchallenge.com

The ‘job to be done’

Building systems to make it easier to apply online for credit is a good thing. But it’s only one step in the consumer’s wider ‘job to be done.’ Interviews and surveys with members have helped verify our hypothesis that cutting the cost of credit is only one step in a longer process of improving financial health.

Many credit unions run Save as You Borrow schemes. Members allocate a proportion of their regular repayment to a savings account, so as the loan is repaid the member is building their savings, thereby reducing their need to borrow in the future. These schemes act as nudges members to save regularly. Over time, members save more. Eventually members build a nest egg. If we only built an online loan application system, we’d not be helping members reach their financial goals. It’s not even half-completing their job to be done.

Making it easy to open savings accounts helps people to start saving. But most activity in a credit union takes place in lending. This is where we can make a real difference. People start off borrowing and then turn into savers, through the Save as You Borrow scheme. These schemes can give consumers the necessary nudge to move along to the next ‘job step’, which is to start saving regularly.

Savings build over time. For example, people who have been members of Central Liverpool Credit Union for more than two years have 25% of their loan balance held as savings. When someone has been a member for five years the saving to loan ratio is over 50%. For every £100 borrowed, £50 is held as savings. The credit union is helping members get their job done (to save more and borrow less). The NestEgg app puts the opportunity to save more and borrow less directly into the hands of consumers themselves. This helps reduce bad debt. Members with a savings stake in the credit union are, we estimate, half as likely to default on a loan.

In a recent survey, we found that “building up a safety net to avoid having to borrow for unexpected expenses” was extremely important for members (4.7/5). But people think they can do better. Satisfaction with achieving this goal level was only 3.7/5. But for non-members satisfaction fell considerably. People want to save. Borrowers are keen to make the step to become a saver, but they struggle. However, they are more likely to succeed if they are a credit union member.

Listening to members

Life for members is characterised by a juggle between borrowing and saving. Janet had been a member for 8 years. She’d recently borrowed to fix her car. Generally on top of day to day finances, it’s the unexpected big bills that throw her off track. Janet had built her savings up over time. She prefers not to know how much is there, “It’s too tempting. I only borrow if needed and make sure I save as much as I can”. Janet’s loan to savings ratio was 60% – £600 in savings and a balance of £1,000 on her loan. Despite this, Janet had no intention of using her savings to pay down the loan. She valued the ‘safety net’ she had painstakingly built up too much.

Stuart came for an interview and described how during his earlier life he’d managed to save regularly. But a loss of work meant he’d ended up borrowing. However, when Stuart lost his income and was looking for work, he didn’t raid his savings. Instead he applied for a credit union loan.

This determination to hold onto hard-earned savings is not unusual. In our recent survey Central Liverpool Credit Union members told us it was important not to raid their savings (4.5/5). Members of the credit union were reasonably satisfied they’d achieved this (3.9/5) but non-members far less so. It’s clear from these results that credit unions are educating members to in good savings habits. It’s this culture of caution that NestEgg is digitising and building into the new mobile app.

Loss-aversion

Stuart, Janet and 1,000s of other credit union members have done well. And against the odds. When people must cut spending in order to save more, they often perceive this as a loss, as it usually means a decrease in spending money. People often consider losses to be far more important than gains (by a factor 2:1 according to the authors of The Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler). This means that you need to find £20 to make up for the loss of £10. This tendency is known as the loss-aversion bias.

Sunstein and Thaler found that people’s reluctance to save ‘today’ could be overcome if people were encouraged to promise to save in the future. The resulting Save More Tomorrow programme has been hugely successful. Encouraging employees to make an initially small contribution to a pension plan, they then increase payments with each annual pay rise. Loss-aversion is kicked into the long grass. The programme doubled the amount that people were saving in their pension pot within four years.

Credit unions have their own ‘tomorrow’ nudge – the Save as You Borrow scheme. If you want to borrow, you’ve got to save. Over time you might qualify for a larger loan. Consequently, your savings contribution also rises. And members are happy to be nudged in this way. “It’s good to still save whilst repaying” one member told us. “Borrowing is helping me save” said another.

The NestEgg app

The Affordable Credit Challenge enables NestEgg and Central Liverpool Credit Union to bring borrow, spending and savings Financial Health Indicators (FHIs) into credit assessment. Importantly, the FHIs follow the steps in the job to be done we describe above: borrow more affordably, start saving, increase the savings ratio and ultimately, build a nest egg. The Borrowing FHI enables better credit assessment.

The Spending FHI is taken into account for credit applications, but it also enables an applicant to identify ways that they can budget to both pay down debt and save more. The Savings FHI shows lenders what assets a borrower has and helps members achieve longer-term goals like saving regularly, improving the savings to loan ratio and building a nest egg. Each of these job steps lead to better financial health. We can scale low-income savings by improving people’s financial health tomorrow by making it more affordable to borrow, and easier to pay down debt and save today.

Fuelling growth

Just like members, credit unions juggle savings and loans. For most of the sector savings outweigh the value of lending on balance sheets. NestEgg clients however, are bucking this trend. Westcountry Savings & Loans had their best November. Castle & Crystal Credit Union have seen a 20% increase in the loan to savings ratio over the past 12 months. Central Liverpool Credit Union saw record-breaking lending and new memberships at Christmas time. Consequently, raising lending capital has become a priority.

At the same time the NestEgg app guides members through borrowing to saving, it helps credit unions fund future lending by boosting deposits. Our member interviews and surveys show that one cannot de-link savings and borrowing. And neither can (responsible) lenders. Any significant increase in the use of affordable credit requires a complimentary scale up of savings. Otherwise demand will outstrip supply. In the minds of members, affordable credit is inextricably linked to saving. So to, should it be top-of-mind for credit unions if they are to succeed.

Here are two examples.

1. Health Canada is the lead for Opioid Response, and Canada is in the midst of a crisis. The number of overdoses and deaths caused by opioids, including fentanyl, has risen sharply and continues to rise. We launched the Drug Checking Technology Challenge to improve on drug checking technology that will allow the community of people who use drugs and those who support them to make more informed decisions based on the composition of a drug. This opening statement on the Challenge platform sends a very clear and public signal that harm reduction (measures that reduce the negative effects of drugs and substances on individuals and communities, without requiring abstinence) is a key pillar of the Government’s approach. While critics of harm reduction believe that this approach normalizes risky behaviour, or delays movement toward treatment and abstinence, the Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy “supports measures that reduce the harmful health, social and economic effects of substance use”.

Launching a Challenge to “create a rapid, accurate, easy to use, and low-cost testing device or instrument that can be used with minimal training and preparation work” sends a clear and direct message that our policy priority is to reduce death by opioid overdose, using all available levers. What more public way to communicate this priority than by inviting innovators of all kinds to help stop overdoses? Because as Tris Dyson says, “We want to use these prizes to solve these problems faster and better – making the most of talent, ideas and motivations out there, wherever they may be”.

2. Another example of how Challenges can help to communicate and advance broader priorities comes from Canada’s East coast, where commercial fishing and boatbuilding are important economic drivers for the region. Atlantic Canada is home to nearly 13,000 inshore fishing boats that use diesel fuel to power them to lucrative fishing grounds. In support of both better economic and environmental outcomes, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency launched a Challenge to boat builders to develop an innovative hull that maximizes energy efficiency, lowers operational costs and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

And yet, the Hull Design Efficiency Challenge has greater aspirations – to again send a clear and transparent signal that there is room to incentivize the acceleration and uptake of clean technologies in an industry which has traditionally relied on “tried and true” methods, often handed down over generations. Adoption of new, novel and more efficient approaches may face barriers to uptake including those are both financial and attitudinal. In this case, by designing a Challenge with specific supports and incentives that will move ideas toward commercialization, the Government is defining a clear space for innovation in clean technologies, and respectfully incenting more rapid progress in an industry almost as old as time itself.

When considering whether a challenge prize might be the right mechanism to help advance progress on your policy issue, it is also worth thinking about the ways this approach can help clearly articulate and communicate your policy positions to your target innovators, stakeholders and larger public.

So ask yourself, what ELSE can challenge prizes do for you?

Julie Greene is Lead for Partnerships for the Canadian Government’s Impact and Innovation Unit at the Privy Council Office and can be found on LinkedIn.

When it comes to direct-to-consumer apps, we’re already seeing simple solutions like MyPay.London assisting Londoners experiencing problems with their pay from employment, or various PIP (Personal Independence Payment) appeal tools. The ambition is to enhance solutions of this kind with cutting-edge AI.

One tech solution could be to have people describe their problem in their own words whilst an AI translates it into ‘legal speak’, compiles documents and performs other high-skilled tasks which are usually undertaken by lawyers. Among the companies working towards this is Legal Utopia. At the time of writing, its ‘Legal Problem Engine’ is a few months away from launching a natural language processing system trained to process plain English to identify the legal nature of someone’s problem and offer a legal diagnosis.

Are tech powered legal services affordable?

Digital solutions are great at reaching scale and cutting costs, but there’s more to it. Legal tech allows for unbundling of legal processes into individual services that can be self-managed (with digital assistance) like signposting or filling in forms, and other services that are normally handled by a lawyer. This reduces the time and money spent on a professional. Moreover, automation enables lawyers to predict workloads and therefore they could fix the price of services rather than charge clients per hour.

Fixed pricing is key to allow customers to anticipate expenses, compare providers and make it transparent what they are actually paying for. Currently, in legal services, people struggle to choose a provider and market competition feels lacking. Consequently, most people do not believe that professional legal advice is worth the money or at all affordable^5,. Luckily, there are providers out there already that seek to make digital, unbundled and affordable legal services a reality like Rocket Lawyer or Legal Zoom.

Clearly, technology has a role to play in making justice accessible to more people in need and things are happening to accelerate this. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is investing £1 billion to reform its systems with the aim of bringing new technology and modern ways of working into the courtroom. The Ministry of Justice has created a £5 million innovation fund to promote new ways in which legal support and advice can be delivered remotely through digital means.

Similarly, Innovate UK has also launched a £20 million Next Generation Services fund to empower a whole range of services, including legal, with cutting edge digital technologies like AI and data analytics. Last but not least, the Solicitors Regulatory Authority has teamed up with Nesta Challenges to launch the Legal Access Challenge prize to see how a proactive regulatory approach can support innovation which makes legal services more accessible. The competition is incentivising innovative technology solutions that will help individuals and SMEs to better understand and resolve their legal problems.

Legal technology appears to be reaching a tipping point. Within years, we should expect more people to claim their rights and feel in control of their legal matters at the push of a button. Far from putting lawyers out of a job, the innovations in the sector will be an invaluable toolbox for legal practitioners, opening the sector to those who are at present excluded from the system altogether.

We hope that the next wave of innovations come from a generation of enterprising young people currently passing through the education system. However, to build their confidence and comfort levels, we need to demystify entrepreneurship. Rather than being associated with immense wealth or god-like figures of Silicon Valley, we need to make it accessible – a norm in our culture. We need to show that entrepreneurship is as much about solving societal problems as creating a billion-dollar corporation. And it’s a lifestyle choice for everyone; not just a few white men.

While we grasp that nettle and, through education, start to encourage our entrepreneurs of the future, we must also consider what else can be done. We must foster a climate within our homes and the workplace that places importance on enterprise, creativity and the STEM subjects. For many years we have known that they’re important, but now they are becoming critical to our children’s future if they are to thrive in their later lives.

Encouragingly there are initiatives up and down the country that are already inspiring the young to think differently and to be enterprising and entrepreneurial. Specifically, how they can apply technology to good use underpinned by STEM subjects. For example, Challenge Works Longitude Explorer Prize 2017 challenged young people to develop innovative, practical solutions that used the Internet of Things to improve the health and wellbeing of people in the UK.

The original prize was open to all UK secondary school pupils with ideas, and resulted in great innovations. This included a wearable watch-like prototype, that helps people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder communicate by changing colour to reflect the emotion of its owner.

We’re about to embark on the biggest ever Longitude Explorer Prize this academic year. Starting in September, the prize has been massively expanded thanks to nearly £1m in funding from the government. We’re aiming to engage with 120,000 young people through entries to the prize, facilitated by lessons in school and through the Longitude Explorer digital platform. Ultimately the teams with the most promising innovations will be mentored ahead of a Dragon’s Den style pitch to select the winner of the prize.

It doesn’t just stop there and in the final part of this series, I’ll be looking at some of the impressive innovations created by young people thanks to the support of challenge prizes of all kinds.

Business with added values

After all, businesses serve a wide array of stakeholders and have a responsibility to make sure the communities in which they operate, interact with, and serve are considered in all that they do. Whether that’s the environment, living conditions, access to health care, poverty, or human rights violations in the countries where components or ingredients are sourced – there are many areas to consider.

Being purpose-led does not mean that the business now operates as a charity or global non-profit trying to solve the world’s problems. It simply means creating a strong set of values for the company that become a North Star for decision-making and how the organisation does business and interacts with its stakeholders. It’s creating a living conscience for the organisation that includes actions – not just rhetoric.

New research and figures are starting to provide evidence that purpose-driven companies really do work. For example, a Korn Ferry study revealed that, from 2011 to 2015 purpose-driven companies in the consumer sector achieved a compound annual growth rate of 9.85% compared to their peers’ rate of 2.4% in the S&P 500. Korn Ferry also found that 90% of executives said a commitment to purpose-driven leadership produces long-term financial benefits.

Learning from the past

Being purpose-driven isn’t new. Looking back through British history to some of the pioneers of industry, consider William Lever who built Port Sunlight for his employees with the aim of ‘getting back to close family brotherhood that existed in the good old days of hand labour’. Or John Spedan Lewis who famously formed the John Lewis Partnership in 1929 and began distributing profits to his employees.

As far back as 1884, The Co-operative Group which was founded to serve a social purpose, as well as a commercial one. The Co-operative Movement guides the group through its values which include self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity, alongside a commitment to ecological sustainability and social responsibility.

More recent example include Unilever which disbanded its CSR department in a bid to embed sustainability in every corner of the business; Timpson’s which focuses on employees and culture first including employing ex-offenders; and Lush Cosmetics’ belief that all business should be ethical and all trade should be fair.

This shift isn’t just about appealing to the end customer– it’s also about attracting the best talent they can, and this talent is now the Millennial and Generation Z cohorts.

After all, the end users of B2B products are ultimately often the general public.

Small business can make a big difference

However, it’s not just larger businesses which are trailblazing new models of purpose-led business – a surprising number of smaller businesses are cropping up that are underpinned by a purpose-led philosophy.

These are the businesses that are challenging the status quo and emerging as successes. For example, there’s award-winning Hydrologic – dedicated to giving people access to clean water in even the most remote parts of Cambodia – and doing it in a sustainable way. It makes, distributes and sells ceramic water purifiers to customers across rural Cambodia to remove bacteria without the need for boiling. It creates jobs, solves a huge societal problem and makes a profit.

There’s also Bottle4Bottle – recently showcased in the Huff Post – which is an Australian family-owned business that invites customers to shop for a cause. Each time it sells a bottle of lotion or spray tan solution, it donates a bottle of premium baby-milk formula to an orphaned or abandoned child in need.

Then there’s TOMS, an inspirational young company that is also a Certified B Corp. TOMS’ business model is based on a One for One® premise – that with every product you purchase, TOMS will help a person in need. TOMS helps provide shoes, eye-care, clean water, safe maternity services and bullying prevention projects to people in need.

Putting purpose at the hear of business

This growth in purpose-led startups is perhaps less surprising when you consider older Millennials are now in their late thirties and Generation Z are in their early twenties, and these cohorts are now yielding entrepreneurs and visionaries wanting their businesses to look and behave differently.

For example Leigh-Kathryn Bonner, a 26-year-old whose mission is to convince companies with massive headquarters to host beehives and, in the process, help rebuild the bee population. Her company Bee Downtown works with the likes of Burt’s Bees, Delta, Chick-fil-A, Intercontinental Exchange, and IBM to host hives

Another individual is Emellie O’Brien who founded Earth Angel to help film production crews become more sustainable by educating them about best practices, using eco-friendly products on set, minimising waste, and tracking carbon footprints. These start-ups have put societal good at their heart and, as a result, have got noticed.

However, for each purpose-led business that achieves recognition, I’m betting that there’s another hundred that are struggling for funding and attention in order to achieve their mission. That’s why we have a duty as a community of investors, suppliers, customers, academics, policymakers and industry partners to showcase Britain’s entrepreneurial talent that is emerging in the area of purpose-led business.

It’s a big opportunity for our economy while also addressing societal and environmental issues with innovative, refreshing approaches. When one of the greatest financiers of our time – Larry Fink, CEO of Black Rock – is telling us that purpose is a company’s fundamental reason for being, then we need to sit up and take notice.

The power of challenge prizes

In the same way that being purpose-led requires a new approach, unlocking the socially responsible innovators of the future also requires a refreshed approach. At Challenge Works, we have been utilising the power of challenge prizes to uncover innovative solutions to some of society’s greatest challenges – and helping the organisations behind these ideas to become sustainable, commercial entities.

Challenge prizes are nothing new, but they have recently gained considerable focus because of their success in spurring new thinking and products that are addressing a varied array of issues such as living with dementia, antibiotic resistance, regulatory changes across industries, mobility, and imagining the cities of the future.

Because challenge prizes are open to anyone, they yield ideas from non-traditional sources and we see highly innovative ideas developed. For example, Guillem Singla Buxarrais and Dimitris Athanasiou, both millennials, co-founded Neurofenix to support stroke sufferers with rehabilitation of their upper limbs through smart games. Their NeuroBall intelligently adapts to the patient and becomes increasingly challenging as the patient progresses.

This purpose-led start-up is an excellent example of a company that is solving a societal problem while also delivering against commercial objectives. Then there’s Edward Maslaveckas and George Dunning who created Bud – the ‘universal banking platform’ where you can manage all your finances (be it a current account, credit card or savings account) in one place. Driven by a passion to make banking personal again, Edward and George, both Millennial fintech entrepreneurs, have successfully built the business while self-funding the project alongside support from the Open Up Challenge.

Starting a new conversation

However, despite their success, challenge prizes alone will not be enough. We need to encourage schools and universities to understand the value of promoting social innovation so that new generations of the workforce, of entrepreneurs, future CEOs and leaders embrace the power of purpose-led business.

We need to change the conversation and adopt new ways of teaching that embed social values at the heart of business studies, showcasing successes and inspirational entrepreneurs. As the trailblazers are demonstrating, doing good and making money are not mutually exclusive; they just require a different mindset. With so many purpose-led businesses taking off, it’s clear that it’s no longer good enough to simply talk about being purpose-led – companies must put words into action or risk being left behind.