LONDON - LEADING THE WAY IN TECH FOR GOOD

Those in London’s thriving tech scene may find it

easy to forget that not everyone has access to the

same cutting-edge entertainment, payment and

communication services as they do. However, as

one of the world’s leading tech hubs, London has a

duty to support technologies that serve the greater

good and help the billions of people on the planet

who can really benefit from Tech For Good.

IS TECHNOLOGY MAKING OURLIVES BETTER?While many of the new services and products that we use are designed to focus on convenience - think of video-streaming platforms that let us switch between devices and pick up exactly where we left off, or payment services that let us access public transport simply by flashing our smartwatch at a sensor - could they really be argued to be a force for good?

In this whitepaper, we’ll be looking to assess

London’s role in the wider Tech For Good

movement, and how the city can continue to put

itself at the centre of efforts to use technology to

make the world a better place. We will also put

some of the London-based entrepreneurs,

organisations and initiatives in Tech For Good in the

spotlight.

Accomable is a service that helps people with

mobility difficulties find accessible properties around

the world. Its mission is to enable anyone to go

anywhere. When it was first set up, Accomable was

supported by a grant from the Skoll Foundation, a

charity founded by former eBay president Jeffrey

Skoll which supports start-ups with a social purpose.

"We kind of fell into the Tech For Good space. I have

a problem-solving background – and asked if

technology could make it better. I wanted to work on

something where you felt you were helping everyday

people," said Srin Madipalli, CEO at Accomable.

"I find assistive tech fascinating. Today's assistive

tech is tomorrow’s gadget. When I was a kid, you

would get these automations to open the curtains, or

raise the bed – they were created for people with

mobility problems. Now you stick a logo on it and it’s

a home automation system. A disabled person is a

good test bed for automation for able people. We’re

hearing so much about driverless cars – the earliest

adopters of these vehicles will be people who can't

drive, such as blind people. It’ll be the ultimate tech

for good."

Tech For Good is a difficult category to define in

just one or two sentences. Indeed, a startup that

could be considered to be part of the Tech For

Good movement may also be defined in a number

of other ways, being part of categories such as

cleantech or healthtech.  

There are many environmental and societal

challenges that require technological solutions. For

example, a recent report from Parliament’s Science

and Technology Committee found that 12.6 million

adults in the UK lack digital skills. An estimated 2

billion people worldwide lack official identification

of any kind. These are the kind of problems that

organisations coming under the banner of ‘Tech For

Good’ can help.

The term can be applied to organisations that

operate in education, health, sustainability, welfare,

community, inclusion and many other areas.

'Tech For Good' is a phrase that has been buzzing around for many years, used as a catch-all term to describe any technology with a social purpose. While on the surface of it, the phrase itself is pretty simple to understand, it covers a broad range of concepts and categories.

WHAT IS TECH FOR GOOD?

However, it’s not always the primary purpose of a

company to be a force for social good - it can be a

happy by-product of their operations, discovered by

users rather than the initial intentions of the

founders. For example, Twitter began as a micro-

blogging platform but had an instrumental role in

bringing people together and disseminating

information during the Arab Spring in 2011.

“Although the tag ‘Tech For Good’ seems to refer

to interventions from organisations with the explicit

goal of delivering social or environmental impact,

there are many innovations that deliver massive

impact and come from companies seeking only to

maximise profit,” said Juan Guerra, fintech

entrepreneur and founder of StudentFunder.

Srin Madipalli, CEO at Accomable, agrees. "Some

of the most socially impactful platforms are out

there to help. I learnt to code through online

tutorials. You can learn a skill for practically nothing.

They may not have started off as a social endeavour,

but that is what they have become."

So while it is clear that not all companies in this

space have set out to win the ‘Tech For Good’ tag,

what are the criteria that an organisation needs to

meet in order to be classified as such?

The Tech For Good TV organisation defines Tech

For Good as technology to "help redistribute

power, give agency to people, help people make

more informed decisions, create ways for people to

connect, participate, address health or care needs

and save energy… it can even make life saving

information and resources more discoverable."

Tech For Good TV also outlines some of the other

questions we should ask of projects to see if they fit

the definition of ‘Tech For Good’. Questions such

as: Is it for the 99% and not just the 1%? Has it been

designed to address an issue or need? Does it give

power and agency to people?

Another of the fundamental principles outlined in

The future of ‘doing good’ in the UK report

published by the Big Lottery Fund in May 2016 is

the need to give people the ability to help

themselves, rather than simply “delivering activities

that are done ‘to’ people”. So, it’s about

empowerment, not just identifying what someone

doesn’t have and providing it to them - the ‘teach a

man to fish’ principle.

WHY TECH FOR GOOD?Paul Miller, partner at Bethnal Green Ventures cites

three main sources of inspiration for Tech For Good

ventures. Firstly, he singles out frustration -

frustration with a situation that directly affects you,

someone you care about, or someone you want to

help. Next there's combination - the combination of

seemingly unconnected ideas in order to provide a

solution to a problem. Finally, there is chemistry,

when two like-minded people come together with a

common purpose to achieve a goal.

As Ruth Shave, marketing and user research lead at

Firesouls, wrote in the Huffington Post: "Technology

can be used to cut out human bias from a process

and make matches. It can help governments work

out a way for the most people that can to get what

they want - or need."

She goes on to give the example of Alvin Roth, who

has designed a way to organise kidney transplants,

using a nationwide database of people who need

kidneys and those prepared to donate theirs - often

relatives of those in need - ensuring medically

suitable matches. This saves lives and tens of

thousands of dollars for the healthcare providers,

and is a great example of the first instance cited by

Miller.

The second instance - the combination of

unconnected ideas - is exemplified by Walacea, set

up by Natalie Jonk. As a scientific researcher, she

was aware of many exciting research projects that

needed money to get off the ground. She was also

interested in crowdfunding platforms, and came up

with the idea of combining the two.

Finally, an perfect example of chemistry is

Accomable, set up by Srin Madipalli and Martyn

Sibley. Accomable helps people with disabilities

find accessible properties around the world - not

only listing details about wheelchair access, but

availability of care assistants, walk-in showers and so

on. The co-founders met as children through a

support group for children with Spinal Muscular

Atrophy (SMA), something they both have in

common. The idea originally stemmed from the

Disability Horizons Group, an online magazine that

they co-founded in 2011. It has since become the

fastest growing disability-related lifestyle

publication with over 40,000 regular readers and

over 200,000 unique visits a year.

Techfugees is a perfect example of an organisation

that has sprung up in order to address a specific

problem, rather than as a by-product of a for-profit

service. It is a social enterprise coordinating the

international tech community’s response to the

needs of refugees. It organises conferences,

workshops, hackathons and meetups in around the

world in an effort to generate tech solutions that can

help refugees.

It's run by an entirely voluntary team, politically

independent and now has more than 11,000

members. Its five main goals are to provide

connectivity and access to the internet for refugees;

provide access to educational tools and resources;

provide identity solutions that greater facilitate

integration into host countries; provide access to

technology innovation for essential care and

specialised care for trauma and associated medical

conditions; and facilitate the social, cultural and

economic inclusion of refugees into host

communities via scalable technology solutions.

The Nominet Trust, headquartered in Oxford,

describes itself as the UK’s leading social tech

funder. It has awarded over £17m in grant funding

to UK social ventures since 2009, with the people

behind the ventures retaining 100% of the equity

and 100% of the intellectual property. It is active in

areas such as Education, Employment & Training,

Environment & Sustainability, Health & Wellbeing,

Local Communities, Open Data, Safety & Protection

and Social Exclusion.

The Nominet Trust also publishes the Social Tech

Guide, an online resource that celebrates the global

pioneers who are using digital technology to

change people’s lives for the better. It publishes the

NT100, which highlights the most innovative social

tech ventures from across the world, ranking the top

100 Tech For Good organisations in the world each

year.

Moving to London, Bethnal Green Ventures is an

organisation that has been instrumental in putting

London at the heart of the Tech For Good

movement.

TECH FOR GOOD SUPERSTARS TECH FOR GOOD TVTech For Good TV is an organisation that works in

partnership with Bethnal Green Ventures, as well as the

Cabinet Office, Nesta, Social Innovation Europe and M/A

to shine a light on the people and technology making the

world a better place.

“We want to bring to life 'Tech For Good' in the broadest

sense, from institutions to start-ups to charities. But we

always have a special focus on telling stories from the user

perspective, rather than just the founder or the

technology,” the organisation says on its website.

CLEARLYSOClearlySo is a London-based impact investment bank

founded in 2008. ClearlySo works exclusively with high-

impact businesses, charities and funds, supporting their

capital raising activity through financial advisory work, and

introducing them to institutional and individual investors

who share their objectives and values. To date, its clients

have raised more than £108m in investment.

Among its clients are: Eyejusters, which creates self-

adjustable eye-glasses for people in the developing and

developed worlds; Gojimo, a mobile-first revision app that

helps students prepare for exams; and Fuss Free Phones,

which makes easy-to-use mobile phones for the visually

impaired and elderly people.

It describes itself as an accelerator for people who

want to change the world using technology,

providing an intensive three-month programme for

those seeking to build solutions to social and

environmental problems. It invests £15,000 in each

team, taking 6% equity, for which the teams get

access to a network of more than 200 mentors,

weekly progress meetings, a tailored programme of

workshops and talks, meetings with investors and a

Demo Day at the end that allows the teams to

present their ideas in a public forum.

Bethnal Green Ventures also helps to organise the

Tech For Good meetup group in London - currently

numbering in excess of 3,750 members - where it

brings together hackers, coders, developers and

designers with people who want to build digital

solutions to social challenges.

While Tech For Good is not as clearly defined a movement as fintech, for example, there are several organisations promoting the movement based in the UK. A handful are highlighted below but these are by no means the only key advocates of Tech For Good in this country.

There is no shortage of statistics that quantify the

size of London’s tech industry. London is the fourth

largest tech ecosystem in the world, and the largest

in Europe, with an estimated value of $44bn. In the

past five years, the number of digital technology

businesses in London has increased by over 12,000,

with around 40,000 businesses in the capital at

present, according to research from Oxford

Economics. A report from CB Insights says that

Venture Capital investment into Britain’s technology

sector has reached a record high with London-

based companies securing 62% of the $3.6bn

raised by UK firms in 2015.

However, due to the difficulty of defining what

exactly does and doesn’t come under the banner,

quantifying the size of London’s contribution to the

Tech For Good movement is a much tougher task.

And while London is well known for being a hub for

tech startups in specific verticals such as fintech and

app & software development, there is some debate

as to whether the city has made a significant

contribution to the the Tech For Good movement.

Writing for Tech City News in June 2015, Kirsty

Styles asked: "tech for good sounds, well, good on

paper, but when it gets down to it, it’s not clear

whether London’s techies, leaders or workers, yet

buy into good industries, good workplaces or good

hiring policies.

LONDON’S ROLE IN A GLOBAL MOVEMENT"We may celebrate being better than Silicon Valley

on areas like diversity, but that’s hardly good, is it?"

But Paul Miller, partner at Bethnal Green Ventures,

believes that London is the Tech for Good capital of

the world. Writing in the Huffington Post, he

outlines why the capital city is so important to the

movement, citing the tendency in the US for large

individual donors to dominate philanthropic capital.

"Europe’s more comfortable relationship with the

welfare state made it a stronger place to innovate

around social issues. London is a unique city where

finance, technology and social policy work side by

side - which puts it in a perfect position to take

advantage of the Tech For Good movement,” Miller

wrote.

The Nominet Trust’s NT100 list supports Miller’s

assertion that London is leading the way in the Tech

For Good movement, with 20 startups from the

capital making the 2015 list, up from 19 in 2014.

Compare this to San Francisco’s 15 in 2015 and 13

in 2014.

what3words is a universal addressing platform

founded in London and was highlighted in the most

recent Nominet Trust NT100. Originally conceived as

a way of helping festival organisers get their kit and

talent to the right place, many of the ways in which it

is now used put it very much in the Tech For Good

category.

The system is a location reference platform based on

a global grid of 57 trillion three-metre by three-metre

squares, where each square has a unique pre-

assigned three-word address. The solution helps

everyone who needs to share or find a location,

whether they are a refugee, a small business or an

aid organisation.

It's being used to deliver parcels and post in Rio’s

favelas, medicine in South Africa’s Townships and

solar lighting in the slums in India. It was used in

Tanzania to monitor outbreaks of violence in the run

up to recent elections and as well as a cholera

outbreak in Dar es Salaam. The United Nations has

also built three-word addresses into its disaster

reporting app UN-Asign.

Azimo is a startup founded in London that has set

itself the mission of helping the world's poorest

people by making remittances - payments made by

migrants back to their families overseas - much easier

and reducing the fees involved. While international

aid provided by governments trickles down from the

top - often never reaching the people it is intended

to help - remittance payments work in a 'bottom-up'

way, with money reaching the poorest people directly

before working its way into the local economy.

Remittance payments make up a very significant

proportion of GDP in many countries - in 2014, they

were equal to more than 20% of GDP in 10 nations,

according to the Migration Policy Institute.

International migrants remitted more than $582

billion in earnings in 2015, of which $432 billion was

to low- or middle-income countries.

Azimo's low fees in comparison to services such as

Western Union and high-street banks has seen it gain

recognition from the UN and it has recently received

investment from e-commerce giant Rakuten in order

to help it expand in Asia. It also gives users the

option to donate some of the money they save to

charity, and donates 10% of its profits to Operation

Smile and ActionAid.

"As one of the world’s most vibrant, forward

thinking cities London should play a big part in the

Tech For Good movement. Its diverse population,

deep expertise and rich history all feeds into an

innovation melting pot which has developed some

of the world’s most impactful and inspiring tech

solutions. London should be a beacon of good

practice and the benchmark of how tech can be

used for good, not only in the UK, but right across

the globe," said Chris Howroyd, service

development director at SH:24.

Juan Guerra, fintech entrepreneur and founder of

StudentFunder, said: "London has huge potential to

generate disruptions in financial services, education,

healthcare and energy, not least because of its

privileged access to human capital - knowledge

workers, entrepreneurs - as well as venture capital."

And looking beyond London, the UK has a lot it can

be proud of too. A government survey from 2015

found that Britain’s 70,000 social enterprises

contribute £24bn to the economy and employ

nearly a million people. But while regional and

national pride in our contribution to the Tech For

Good movement is all very well, it should be

recognised that the overall movement has a greater

reach - both in terms of those who need help and

those who can help.

"Tech For Good is happening across the world, so it

is global. Whether it is a ‘global movement’ yet is

another matter – this inherently relies on people

across continents agreeing some common

principles and then committing to use them as a

collective network; sharing approaches, learning,

outputs and outcomes to maximise impact and

optimisation. Local movements, whether they be in

man-made cities or hubs should be an integral part

of the global movement - a cog in the bigger Tech

for Good machine," SH:24’s Howroyd said.

Paul Miller, partner at Bethnal Green Ventures,

certainly thinks so. "London has the most vibrant

impact investment scene in the world," he says,

pointing out that a new breed of funders who

valued profit as much as purpose emerged after the

financial crash of 2008.

Entrepreneurs who have sought funding for Tech

For Good projects agreed with Miller. "Like any

investment, there has to be a return that matches

the level of risk. For most investors, financial returns

are a hygiene factor and the impact of the venture is

a differentiator, but some investors will accept lower

financial returns in favour of higher social or

environmental returns of a specific kind," said Juan

Guerra, fintech entrepreneur and founder of

StudentFunder.

And while investment is a key factor to the success

of many of these ventures, it is by no means the

only factor. "Many Tech for Good companies

require significant support from charities like

Nominet Trust and UnLtd to get to the point where

they can gain traction and become profitable or

investable by business angels or VCs. Accelerators

such as Wayre Social Ventures and Emerge

Education also play a big role.

So for startups in this space, is London the best place in the world to be?

THE INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY

"It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a

whole ecosystem to raise a venture," Guerra

continued.

But while London is certainly a focus for the Tech

For Good movement within Europe, can it really

compete with Silicon Valley? Srin Madipalli, CEO at

Accomable, thinks that a change in mindset is

required by institutional investors.

SH:24 works in partnership with the NHS to make

sexual and reproductive health services more

accessible and easier to navigate. It offers STI testing

and other services online, making for a more

convenient and empowered experience. On the

other side of the coin, it also saves the NHS time and

money, enabling highly trained doctors and nurses in

traditional bricks-and-mortar clinics to concentrate

on more complex cases.

"The fundamental principles of the Tech For Good

movement are to support, foster, empower and

enable organisations and individuals alike, to tackle

challenging issues by applying tech in innovative and

novel ways, to disrupt and support. Tech For Good’s

relationship with economic growth should be equally

straightforward – if wealth is generated, it should be

as a by-product or a necessity for sustainability,

rather than a principal driver," said Chris Howroyd,

service development director at SH:24.

In order to make the environment better for Tech

For Good ventures, more support for angel

investors would be welcome, as they are more likely

to recognise the hurdles that these projects are

likely to encounter.

"I think the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme

(SEIS) is a step in the right direction - but how do

we expand that? Our investors are very

entrepreneurial – and I think early stage startups

need entrepreneurial investors because they need

people who understand the challenges," said

Madipalli.

"London is the best place in Europe by a country

mile – but I don’t think we’re there yet when

compared to Silicon Valley. The question is: 'What

can we do to be better than them?' In the US,

people are more willing and open to higher level

risk. In the UK, they want to the market proved

whereas in the US they see that lack of validation as

an opportunity, rather than waiting for the

bandwagon to roll. And by the time it’s a

bandwagon rolls, the space is already dominated,"

said Madipalli.

SalaryFinance is an organisation that aims to help

employers improve the financial health of their

employees. Co-founded by the former MD of

Google UK, Dan Cobley, the company helps

employees pay off their existing debt quicker by

consolidating it into a single, low interest loan, at one

third of the market average, with repayments

collected from payroll. The interest rate is fixed and

is the same for all employees, regardless of credit

score or income. By collecting repayments directly

from salary, rather than direct debit, SalaryFinance

also reduces risk and cost to the lender, allowing

these savings to be passed on to employees.

Cobley’s co-founder was Asesh Sarkar. Genuinely

concerned about the financial well-being of UK

employees, Sarkar was inspired to start SalaryFinance

after finding out that his son’s nanny was desperately

struggling with unmanageable, high-interest

personal debt. Offering to help by paying off the

debt himself and then taking manageable

repayments directly from her monthly salary, he

realised the same model could be applied across

thousands of UK businesses.

Firefly is an online tool that brings together teachers,

students and parents. It gives teachers more time to

teach, helps students learn more independently and

collaboratively, and allows parents to be involved in

their child's learning.

Founded in 1999 by Joe Mathewson and Simon Hay

while they studied for their GCSEs. It was initially

focused on solving a problem for their own school,

but Firefly is now trusted by hundreds of schools

around the world and has a fast-growing team based

in offices in London, Brighton and Sydney.

In 2011, amidst unrest in Egypt, Firefly helped the

British International School in Cairo tackle numerous

challenges ranging from internet and telephone

outages to evacuations and school closures. Nine

hundred students and teachers were able to access

vital learning resources via a tailored central

communication system.

"There is a massive skills shortage. We’re trying to

hire developers but it’s really hard. There’s a real

dearth of engineers – and I’m not sure how to fix

that. So we either need to get more people to

choose it as a career – or get more people to move

over here with the skills," Madipalli said.

However, Chris Howroyd, service development

director at SH:24, believes that London is in a

strong position to forge ahead as a world leader in

Tech For Good.

"The future for the movement in London can only

be good. There is so much talent in this city it would

be a crying shame if some of it was not directly

working towards making a real difference to real

people’s lives. The more inspirational projects will

help drive awareness and ultimately demand, or

rather an expectation among people that the

products and services they come into contact with

should have an inherent social or environmental

cause behind them.

"In health particularly, the recently formed Digital

Health London accelerator and soon-to-launch

incubator Health Foundry will provide spaces for

collaboration and shared learning so it will be

exciting to see how they develop," said Howroyd.

In order to remain at the front of this movement, the

principle of innovating to solve real-life problems

and make people’s lives better needs to be at the

forefront of our minds, argues fintech entrepreneur

Guerra.

“For me the important thing is to keep innovating

and providing services that significantly improve the

planet and the lives of people. Our intentions -

whether we do this with a social or environmental

purpose or purely for profit - are not nearly as

important as the impact,” he said.

THE FUTURE FOR TECH FOR GOODThere are other challenges for London if it is to establish its position as the main hub for Tech For Good. Like the wider technology industry in London, a shortage of the appropriate skills is one of the most acute problems.

And it should also be accompanied with a sense of

wonder, says Billy Dann, grants digital innovation

manager at Comic Relief, writing in the Huffington

Post. Our natural curiosity to see just how far

technology can go to improve the planet on a local

and global scale can be a driving force for good

“Funding programmes that support Tech for Good

will play a central role in helping us ensure we

achieve the greatest possible impact around the

world. We have already seen the impact

technology has had on modern life and how

harnessing this influence can really deliver ‘tech for

good’. As these developments continue to evolve,

we’re excited to see where Tech for Good will take

us over the next few years and see its life-changing

potential help disadvantaged people here in the

UK and around the world,” he said.