Innovative Platforms Win Inaugural Year of Social Enterprise Challenge ‘Our Place in the World’ and Theme for 2018 Announced

Zahra Davidson and Harrison Moore each win £15,000 seed funding, together with 12 months of incubator space, support and mentoring at InnovationRCA, to develop and grow their social impact start-ups. 

Their projects respond to Our Place in the World’s inaugural theme ‘The Future of Work,’ which was launched by Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Tom Watson MP with support from his far-reaching Commission on the Future of Work.  The challenge called for innovative solutions and opportunities that will enable a productive and meaningful society as the workforce ages and rapidly changing technology such as Artificial Intelligence and robotics are adopted.

Zahra Davidson’s Enrol Yourself is a personal development solution that allows people to integrate learning into their life, harnessing the power of peer groups, infinite content and a networked world for lifelong learning that is personalised, flexible and affordable.

Harrison Moore’s concept is SUBTAP, a platform to connect subcontractors to construction industry employers simplifying administration and enabling a fairer system of employment.

Director of InnovationRCA and Future of Work Commissioner Dr Nadia Danhash commented on the impressive range of applications received, which included ideas around managing time in the workplace to innovations in shiftwork practice and learning opportunities: “It’s been very rewarding to mentor these bright people with their range of inspirational ideas aimed at improving and preparing people for productive and fulfilling futures at work.”

Mark Norbury, UnLtd CEO, said: “Technology is rapidly changing how we work. This brings significant new social challenges as well as opportunities. Social entrepreneurship is a powerful way to deliver sustainable, long-lasting solutions to these challenges. It has been fantastic to see the high quality and diversity of ideas submitted in response to the Future of Work. We’re looking forward to continuing to work closely with InnovationRCA, Tom and Claire Shutes to support the winning social entrepreneurs to grow their ventures and deliver real impact.”

“The response to our inaugural Challenge has been astounding”, says entrepreneur & philanthropist Tom Shutes, who conceived of the idea as a response to the new set of issues that the Referendum brought to the fore, with a re-assessment of how we renegotiate ‘our place in the world’ being chief amongst these.  “We set up the first year’s theme to complement Tom Watson’s independent Commission on the Future of Work and benefitted from his team’s involvement in helping identify our winners. Our vision for was to use the challenge to address specific issues regionally, so we are delighted to be working with North East Lincolnshire Council for 2018, tackling a live situation by inviting innovative responses to the town’s regeneration opportunities.”

The theme for 2018 is ​The Future of Grimsby, a call to start-ups, innovators, students and Grimsby’s local community to submit​ ​business​ ​plans​, ideas and social enterprises ​that will contribute to the regeneration of this historic seaport as it prepares for a major development spike.  North East Lincolnshire Council has recently revealed multi-million pound plans for Greater Grimsby that could bring 7700 new homes and 5400 new jobs to the area; hence the pertinence of focusing on this real opportunity for dynamic change-making, regenerating an urban centre through social enterprise.

North East Lincolnshire Council’s director of Economy and Growth, Angela Blake, says “We are excited to be working with Our Place in the World to look at ways of engaging community in positive changemaking, as well as generating input from the social entrepreneur community.  Ultimately these could feed into the proposals that we have drawn up and which we hope could become a blueprint for how similar towns across the country could work with central government on major regeneration projects.”

The Our Place in the World awards ceremony will take place at Royal College of Art on Thursday 21 September, during which the prizewinners will present their projects and a panel discussion will be held on The Future of Grimsby.  Panellists will include senior representatives of North East Lincolnshire Council, UnLtd social entrepreneurs, regeneration experts and challenge partners, chaired by Helen Hamlyn Chair of Design Jeremy Myerson.

The Our Place in the World cycle will commence with a call for submissions from September-December 2018, mentoring of shortlisted projects through the Challenge’s partners until June 2019, with winners announced in Sept 2019.

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Press contacts

·       For Tom Shutes please contact: [email protected]  07976 766221

·       For InnovationRCA please contact: [email protected]   020 7590 4114

·       For UnLtd please contact: Paul [email protected] 07545 933810

·       For North East Lincolnshire Council, please contact [email protected], 01742 325968

Notes to Editors

Tom Shutes is an entrepreneur with a philanthropic commitment to the arts, innovation and social enterprise.

About the Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art is the world’s leading university of art and design, ranking #1 in the QS World University subject rankings 2015, 2016 and 2017. It specialises in teaching and research, offering the degrees of MA, MPhil and PhD across the disciplines of fine art, applied art, design, communications and humanities. There are over 1,550 masters and doctoral students supported by more than 200 professionals interacting with them – scholars and leading art and design practitioners – along with over 800 specialists, advisors and distinguished visitors. InnovationRCA is its centre for entrepreneurship.

Web: www.rca.ac.uk Twitter: @RCA

About UnLtd

We are UnLtd. We want to see a world where people act to make it better. We reach out to find passionate, talented, resourceful social entrepreneurs who are determined to tackle the key issues facing society.

Since we began in 2002, we have given out over 13,000 awards of support and funding, direct and through partners, to social entrepreneurs to start well and thrive. We’ve developed a vibrant ecosystem of hundreds of supporters in the UK and across the globe. Today, UnLtd is at the heart of a thriving movement for good. Now, we’re committed to helping social entrepreneurs to become a valued and vibrant part of society. That means using all our experience, insight and innovation to break down the barriers preventing social entrepreneurship from fulfilling its potential to change the UK for the better.

For more information about the support offered by UnLtd go to www.UnLtd.org.uk