What was the Tech to Connect Challenge?
The Tech to Connect Challenge was a £1 million prize looking to help civil society develop their early stage ideas for tech that enables more or better interactions between people. Tech can be alienating or divisive for those that are isolated, so we wanted to help civil society translate their knowledge into good ideas for new ways to connect people. The Challenge was funded by DCMS and delivered by Nesta Challenges with support from the Developer Society.
Why did we run the Challenge?
Social isolation is measured by the strength of a person’s social connections, and therefore the lack of these connections denotes social isolation. It’s distinct from loneliness, which is a “subjective, unwelcome feeling of lack or loss of companionship”. In an age of social media, there has never been more technology that connects us with one another. Though we think there’s space for technology to do more. That’s why we wanted to support civil society organisation – England’s charities, social enterprises and social ventures – who were working on new ideas of tech for good. The Tech To Connect Challenge gave these organisations the resources they needed to bring their innovative ideas to life.
What were we looking for?
We were interested in any and all solutions that could reasonably be expected to have a measurable impact on social isolation in England. These could have been digital technologies that augment the way people interact with organisations or ideas that could enhance the way isolated people interact with each other. We were also looking for innovative back end solutions that could help to improve the service delivery of an organisation, clearly supporting the reduction of isolation in communities in England. The solutions did not have to be digital, but it was expected that the finalists would develop a prototype by the end of the innovator support package provided by the challenge prize.
What happened?
Applicants were asked to detail a problem related to social isolation in England and their idea for how technology can help to address it. The solutions could have been direct (‘this is how we plan to change the interactions between people’) or indirect (this is how we plan to improve the service we offer people face-to-face).
Ten Finalists each received cash grants of £25,000 to use in the development of their prototype solutions; from these finalists, two runners up each received a £75,000 cash prize and one winner received a £100,000 cash prize.
Impact of the Challenge
- 90% of finalists stated that they were able to develop their solutions faster as a result of being part of the Challenge
- 90% of finalists found the experience of taking part in the Challenge either good or very good and enjoyed the experience
- 55% of finalists felt that had built, developed and/or improved their skills and capabilities due to taking part in the Challenge
- Over 70% of finalists were able to further develop their business model as a result of taking part in the Challenge
- The majority of finalists agreed that the Challenge helped to raise awareness about the potential of technology to solve social isolation
Read the Tech to Connect final report
Runners-up
The team
Janet Southern McCormick
Programme Manager
Caroline Pradier
Assistant Programme Manager
Gary Fawdrey
Assistant Programme Manager
Piotr Gierszewski
Senior Researcher
Janet Southern McCormick
Programme Manager
Pronouns: She/Her
Janet aims to practice collaborative working everyday – diverse, challenging people energise and drive her to improve her work. She is particularly interested in gender equality and female economic empowerment, entrepreneurship, and the environment / climate change, and is curious about how these link into the wider story of poverty alleviation and economic development.
Janet has a strong background in business processes, programme design and implementation, and direct client management. Before joining Nesta she was COO for the SPRING Accelerator, supporting growth stage businesses in East Africa and South Asia to design products and services for adolescent girls. Prior to that she worked in other international development charities and in management consultancy.
Outside of work Janet enjoys yoga and boxing – a combination that offers a surprising balance!
Caroline Pradier
Assistant Programme Manager
Pronouns: She/Her
Caroline is an Assistant Programme Manager working on the delivery of a number of prizes focused on Health, Disability, Government and Innovation. This includes one of our flagship programmes, the $4 million Mobility Unlimited Challenge.
Caroline joins Nesta from Y Care International, a youth-focused charity, implementing employment focused projects in West Africa in collaboration with YMCA organisations. Prior to this, Caroline has worked on a variety of projects all over West Africa for DCAF, a Swiss-based foundation and the UNDP on issues ranging from conflict prevention to training the police and the military.
Based in London for the past four years, Caroline enjoys discovering the city as well as travelling, reading and playing video games.
Gary Fawdrey
Assistant Programme Manager
Pronouns: He/Him
Gary works on social innovation and tech for good prizes.
Before joining Nesta he worked in the youth sector with vInspired and Generation Change – supporting young people to volunteer and take action in their communities.
Outside of Nesta he is a Social Enterprise Fellow at the WCMT, serves on the Global Advisory Board of the Social Innovation Academy and is a member of the Climate Venture Collective. He holds certificates in Human Centred Design, Innovation Management and Community Organising, as well as an M.A. in Public Administration and Public Policy.
Piotr Gierszewski
Senior Researcher
Pronouns: He/Him
Piotrek is passionate about using foresight as a tool for achieving social impact; exploring possible visions for the future, anticipating obstacles and enabling the desirable opportunities to happen. He has over ten years’ experience in research within academia, private and non-profit sectors.
At Nesta Challenges, he is responsible for researching social and environmental problems and identifying opportunities to tackle them. He turns insight into practice by developing challenge-driven, open-innovation competitions that support communities of solvers and incentivise solutions to these problems. Since 2017, Piotrek has worked on topics ranging from emerging innovations in whale conservation or legal services to scaling up access to surgical procedures in low resource settings.
Prior to joining Nesta, Piotrek had worked at a boutique science commercialisation consultancy as a technology scout and at the University of Cambridge as a life scientist specialising in epigenetics and molecular biology. He also co-lead a few grassroots networks focused on translation of ‘deep’ and/or ‘bench’ science into commercial opportunities and acceleration of their market entry.
Piotrek is a fire performer specialising in ‘poi’ spinning and fire breathing (though less so since he grew a beard), loves nature and spending time outdoors.