GETTING WOMEN TECH SAVVY AND BACK TO WORK

Oxfordshire-based TechPixies launched in 2015 as a pilot project funded by Better Broadband for Oxfordshire and the Oxfordshire County Council to help women wanting to boost their digital skills ahead of returning to work.

The project initially worked with 12 women and had a 100 per cent success rate after they all either returned to work or launched a business. TechPixies has since helped thousands of women upskill.

Earlier this year the founder, Joy Foster, was a finalist in the Tech for Good awards, the latest of many such achievements since she launched the project.

When the global pandemic hit the UK in March of 2020, Joy set up and ran multiple free training programmes to help women quickly upskill with modern technology.

More than 16,000 women have now registered for this free training programme.

By Tris Dyson, Managing Director and Founder, Nesta Challenges

Nesta is the UK’s innovation foundation for social good. We develop and run prizes to support those whose innovations could solve the great problems of our time.

We help level the playing field for small businesses and innovators who, too often, are overlooked by traditional R&D grant funding.

Nesta’s Challenge Prize identifies a problem that needs to be solved but where solutions have not been forthcoming.

It then incentivises innovations by rewarding the first or best proven solution to that problem with a significant cash prize.

Rather than prescribing what the solution should be, this prize method supports the most promising ideas in order to develop and progress them, allowing innovators to pivot and iterate in pursuit of the final reward.

This prize method de-risks investment for funders, opening the field to newcomers and unknowns – whether a commercial offshoot of a university research team, a start-up, or even someone working in their garden shed.

Other organisations have done this. In the USA, the Ansari XPrize promoted innovation in private space flight. The winner went on to become Virgin Galactic. Another programme, The DARPA driverless vehicle prizes, have seen competing innovators become pioneers in the American automotive sector.

In the UK, Nesta Challenges has run prizes in diagnostic technology to tackle superbugs, with teams pursuing the £8 million Longitude Prize. In finance, the Open Up challenges spurred the development of new banking services from start-ups that have gone on to become household names.

Foster,

Joy said: “Tech for Good is the way of the future. Consumers want sociallyminded businesses - whether that is environmentally or equality and diversity conscious. It is important that no one gets left behind.

“Tech controls nearly all aspects of our lives and so it is important that people from all backgrounds and walks of life are able to access it, use it and more importantly have a say in how it is built.”

We recently announced the six finalists in the running for the £3 million Rapid Recovery Challenge.

Each secured £150,000 to develop technologies that help people access jobs and financial support post-Covid.

We are currently working with Ofwat’s £200 million innovation fund to bring forward new thinking that addresses challenges facing the water sector.

Harnessing technology to drive positive social change is more important than ever. At a time of so many societal challenges, helping release the untapped potential of innovators with the brightest and boldest ideas is essential.

Challenge prizes offer an open platform for innovators to demonstrate the potential of their ideas, with the winners and finalists going on to make real-world change.