Why tech for good?
This month’s edition of our blog, alongside NatWest, explores ways in which tech is being used for good in a variety of sectors.
We discuss some of the big social and environmental problems being solved by tech, tech for good companies to look out for, and key opinion on the importance of using tech for the good of society.
Why Tech For Good?
Vicky Gibbons - Partner, Bethnal Green Ventures
There’s something exciting happening in the startup scene, and we call it Tech for Good. If you take a look at the London startup community you’ll notice a growing, thriving movement of entrepreneurs and engineers developing tech businesses to solve some of the big social and environmental problems we face.
The Tech for Good Meetupgroup that we help run in London now has over 7,500 members. There are hundreds, if not thousands of startups using their tech skills to address problems as diverse as how to improve the way we make orthotics and prosthetics for children through to building an energy infrastructure fit for the twenty-first century.
At Bethnal Green Ventures, we’re all about using Tech For Good. We’re Europe’s leading early stage investor in tech startups building better solutions within healthcare, education, democracy and environment. We focus our investments into diverse teams, growing businesses that are profitable and deeply impactful.
3 Tech for Good startups to watch
- Fairphone is the world’s first ethical modular fairphone. They have sold over 160,000 phones — making a positive impact across the value chain in mining, design, manufacturing and life cycle, while expanding the market for products that put ethical values first.
- DrDoctor is transforming the way hospitals and patients communicate, by using pragmatic, common-sense technology to tackle the financial strain on the NHS. Their first product improves appointment scheduling, increasing clinic efficiency by reducing the number of ‘do not attends’ and filling empty slots. They’re in 22 major hospitals and used by over 5 million patients.
- TalkLife is a social network of over 100,000 young people who provide peer support to each other on mental health issues. They’ve develop machine learning that can identify people at risk of self-harm from the conversations they have on the platform, and offer that analysis to other social media providers, for whom identifying users at risk is a massive issue.
These startups are providing opportunities to the growing number of people who want to invest their wealth in positive ways. At BGV we’re developing products to meet the demand for investments that positively impact social and environmental issues whilst providing market rate returns.
We’re seeing that given a choice, people prefer investments that have a positive impact.
If you’d like to find out more, please do get in touch at hello@bethnalgreenventures.com.
Tech For Good Startups to watch
EMSOL is the first data focused ‘emissions as a service’ offering, enabling businesses to drive interventions to reduce road transport pollution.
The EMSOL team is currently based at IDEALondon, an innovation space managed by Capital Enterprise on behalf of Cisco, UCL and EDF Energy.
Uptree is a platform for future talent to connect with inspiring opportunities. Young professionals can access career videos, discover companies, apply to attend careers events and work experience, and meet professionals face to face.
They are an alumni company of our Green Light Programme, an investment readiness programme which runs on a regular basis throughout the year.
Adia Health are on a mission to revolutionise women’s reproductive healthcare and aid women in their fertility journey, using a platform to help provide a science-based plan, convenient tests, and expert support.
The Adia Health team are also an alumni company of the Green Light Programme, and are a portfolio company of the London Co-Investment Fund, a seed stage fund managed by us at Capital Enterprise alongside Funding London.
Driven by a desire to encourage children’s reading, Auris Tech are innovators of the world’s first ASR engine for children’s read speech. The engine evolves using machine learning processes to deliver market-leading accuracy at a level of over 91%.
Auris Tech are also an alumni company of our Green Light Programme.
OnCare provide digital tools to make care delivery easier for providers, care workers, clients and their families. Their tools help care agencies save time and money by replacing paper with digital records and achieve higher CQC ratings and helps care workers report on client visits with just a few taps.
They are an alumni company of the Green Light Programme and a portfolio company of the London Co-Investment Fund.
Wagestream allows employees to have complete control over when they get paid. It effectively ends the need for employee advances, loans and employee stress suffered from short term, and unplanned financial obligations.
They are a portfolio company of the London Co-Investment Fund and have recently been backed by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.
News and Articles
This site gives a great overview of the latest news and opinion in the Tech for Good sector.
The finalists of the first ever Civic Innovation Challenge, the Mayor of London’s new initiative that matches tech startups and SMEs with leading companies and public bodies to create innovative solutions to some of London’s most pressing problems, have been announced.
Follow the link to find out the finalists, working in sectors from Travel, Health and Finance.
An interview with Dr. Angle Diaz, Vice President of Developer Technology, Open Source & Advocacy at IBM, to look at the importance of open source for IBM and how it’s changing the world around us.
Leaders from Johnson & Johnson, The Walt Disney Co. and others weigh in on top HR priorities, such as using tech to improve candidate and employee experience.
A look at how and why the way that brands, tech companies, and analytics providers use AI to solve real human problems, and further the progression of humanity.
Events
Tech For Good: Meetup
Tech for Good London is a meetup group that brings together hackers, coders, developers and designers with people who really understand a social problem and want to build digital solutions to social challenges.
Details of future and other meetups can be found via this link.
EDUCATE 2018 Investor Summit & Demo Day
Join UCL Educate on 26th November for this event to conclude and celebrate the accomplishments of 10 selected EdTech startups from the EDUCATE program.
The event will provide an opportunity to discuss global trends that are shaping the future of learning and education, discover new investment opportunities and create partnerships.
Many thanks to Vicky Gibbons and Gracie Jones
