BeLifted Now (Aura - Tackling Women's Health Inequalities Through Technology)

BeLifted Now is developing Aura, a free digital health platform designed to help women better understand, monitor, and advocate for their health. The project responds to persistent health inequalities affecting women across the UK, particularly Black and minority ethnic women, who continue to experience significantly poorer maternal and health outcomes.

Aura wants to transform how women understand, manage, and advocate for their health.

Women continue to face significant health inequalities, with many conditions going undiagnosed, symptoms dismissed, and healthcare journeys fragmented. These challenges disproportionately affect Black and minority ethnic women, who experience some of the poorest maternal and health outcomes in the UK. Aura exists to close this gap.

Aura is an AI-powered women’s health platform that enables women to track symptoms, menstrual health, fertility, pregnancy, menopause, mood, medication, appointments, and overall wellbeing in one place. By combining personalised health insights, trusted information, and community support, Aura empowers women to identify patterns, make informed decisions, and have more effective conversations with healthcare professionals.

Over time, Aura will generate anonymised population-level insights that help researchers, healthcare providers, and policymakers better understand women’s health experiences, contributing to more responsive and equitable healthcare systems.

The platform is currently being developed in partnership with DolpTec and has received initial support through AWS credits.

Support needed:

• Digital Health Product Development, UX/UI Design and Scaling: We welcome support from product leaders, designers and digital health specialists to refine Aura’s user experience, improve accessibility and support scalable growth. Expertise in building engaging, user-centred health platforms would be particularly valuable. We are also seeking support from AI and health technology experts to develop safe, personalised and evidence-based features.
• NHS, Women’s Health and Clinical Partnerships: We are seeking partnerships with NHS organisations, public health teams and women’s health networks to support validation, integration and growth. We would also welcome guidance from clinical experts in women’s health, maternity, menopause and mental health.
• Clinical Advisory Support: We are seeking clinical advisors with expertise in gynaecology, maternity, reproductive health, menopause, and mental health to help ensure Aura’s content, recommendations, and user experience are clinically informed and aligned with best practice.
• Strategic Introductions and Partnerships: Access to investors, funders, healthcare organisations, universities and research institutions would help accelerate development, collaboration and future funding opportunities.
• Marketing, Communications and User Acquisition: We are seeking support from marketing, PR and brand experts to build awareness, grow our user base and establish Aura as a trusted women’s health platform. Influencer partnerships and community-focused campaigns will be key to reaching diverse audiences. We welcome support to strengthen Aura’s commercial model, revenue strategy and long-term sustainability. Expertise in scaling purpose-driven businesses would help accelerate growth and impact.

https://www.webeliftednow.com

Caption+

Caption+ is a live captioning system for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in university lectures, founded and built by Nishit Joshi, a deaf computer science student. Existing live captions lag several seconds behind the speaker, scroll word by word, and frequently get technical terms wrong, so deaf students are left constantly switching their eyes between captions and the lecture, always a step behind, while hearing students take in both at once. It closes that gap by transcribing speech, correcting subject-specific terminology, and presenting captions designed to reduce the cognitive load that makes captioned learning exhausting, while keeping students part of what is happening in the room rather than locked to a screen. The system is currently piloting in classrooms at the Creative Computing Institute, UAL.

Support needed:

• Legal and Intellectual Property:Expertise to support patent applications and protect Caption+’s unpatented innovations before wider publication. Guidance on company structure, licensing models for universities, and data protection compliance when processing audio in classrooms would also be critical to safeguarding and scaling the project.
• Commercial and Financial Strategy: Support to transition from grant funding to a sustainable revenue model. This includes advice on structuring accounts as a new entity, managing early institutional sales, and building a financially viable model for growth.
• Positioning and Investment: Connections within the social enterprise ecosystem, including organisations such as Social Enterprise UK or Big Issue Invest, to help position Caption+ and link with impact investors who understand accessibility technology.
• Communications and Outreach: Support to strengthen communications and reach key audiences, particularly university disability services and procurement teams, to support adoption and expansion across institutions.

https://captionplus.ai/

If U Care Share Foundation

If U Care Share Foundation is tackling a critical question in suicide prevention: how do we move beyond relying on individuals to speak up and instead identify risk within communities before tragedy occurs?

Founded after the loss of 19-year-old Daniel O’Hare, the charity has supported over 7,000 people and built DANS (Data And Numbers System, also named after Daniel) – a pioneering data system drawing on more than 20 years of frontline insight. Our aim is to combine qualitative experiences with quantitative data from partners and national real-time surveillance systems, enabling DANS to map the hidden “risk landscape” of suicide.

Currently, vital information sits fragmented across services, delaying action and missing early warning signs. DANS brings this intelligence together, standardising data capture and revealing patterns, clusters and vulnerable groups in near real time.

With evidence showing that each suicide affects on average 135 people; this approach enables earlier, targeted intervention – turning lived experience into actionable insight and helping prevent further loss of life.

Support needed:

• Legal and compliance: guidance on GDPR and sensitive data handling, with assistance creating data sharing agreements for statutory and voluntary partners.
• CRM and technology support: advice on scaling a bespoke CRM tool, capable of standardising suicide related data.
• Financial and accounting: support in budgeting, financial planning and reporting for the development, implementation and ongoing maintenance of the system.
• Strategic development and governance: assistance refining the project strategy, governance structure and evaluation framework.

https://www.ifucareshare.co.uk

Learn Inspire Transform (Spot the Opps)

Beyond the Narrative is a nationally reaching community initiative delivering workshops and programmes that empower disadvantaged individuals to reclaim their personal narratives and build confidence for social and economic participation. Through identity shifting, community building, self awareness work and partnerships, we support Young people from marginalised backgrounds and those impacted by the justice system to develop agency over their lives. Emotionally and professionally.

Our work addresses systemic gaps in accessible personal development provision, particularly for communities underrepresented in professional spaces. We have already facilitated multiple workshops and are now scaling our offer to reach more participants across the UK. We address these gaps with innovative games, workshops and projects while ensuring the right message is delivered by the right messenger – someone with lived experience – this the heart of everything we do which is why we are also building a lived especially facilitator community to be the industry gold standard.

Support needed:

• IT Infrastructure: Development of a secure, accessible digital communication system that will connect grieving parents with specialist support at the moment they need it most. Using existing or new IT systems to create a user-friendly service which allows our specialist peer-supporters to manage voice note, text, and phone support, ensuring data protection and smooth service delivery.
• Legal and governance expertise: Strengthening our CIC structure, intellectual property protection advice, data-sharing agreements with partners, and general governance guidance as we restructure and grow.
• HR and organisational development: As a small team of three navigating significant growth, we need support building people structures, role frameworks and policies that are fit for purpose and protect both the organisation and the people within it.
• Strategic communications and marketing: Guidance to amplify BTN’s voice, articulate the case for lived-experience leadership and create change in this space, and reach commissioners and funders more effectively.
• Connections to commissioners:Introductions to local authorities, youth justice services and education partners who could contract BTN’s programmes and the Spot the Opps game at scale.
• Mentorship from social enterprise leaders: Support from people who have navigated the journey from early-stage innovation to systemic influence, particularly those who understand the challenges of building enterprises rooted in lived experience.
• Digital marketing:Guidance on social media strategy and content creation to amplify our reach and attract more participants.
• Professional network:Introductions to pro bono partners in education, employment, and community development to create trusted pathways for our participants through strong partnerships.

https://www.beyondthenarrative.co.uk/

PySAF

PySAF is converting UK-grown Miscanthus, a carbon-negative energy crop cultivated by British farmers on marginal land, into sustainable aviation fuel and high-value bioproducts using a proprietary fast-pyrolysis and fractionation platform. Unlike existing approaches, PySAF separates bio-crude into two distinct product streams: PyXCrude, an organic bio-crude for refinery co-processing into SAF, and PyXSugra, an aqueous sugar phase for bio-hydrogen, biomethane, and speciality chemicals. This dual-stream model improves process economics and creates multiple revenue pathways from a single sustainable feedstock.

PySAF holds four patent filings and has validated the core fractionation chemistry at TRL-5. We have received unsolicited interest from major European energy companies, UK pyrolysis oil producers, and UK feedstock suppliers, and we maintain active research collaborations with more than ten leading UK universities. The project delivers clean fuel, long-term income for UK Miscanthus farmers on land unsuitable for food production, and a scalable domestic pathway to net-zero aviation. We welcome new partners across the supply chain.

Support needed:

• Legal:Commercial IP licensing structures, technology transfer agreements, and university collaboration contracts as we move toward pilot-scale licensing
• Impact measurement: Building a rigorous SROI and carbon attribution framework to strengthen our investor and policy evidence base
• Financial mentoring: Investor narrative, cashflow modelling, and R&D tax credit advice for our £1.25 million seed raise.
• Scale replication:Designing a licensing and replication framework for regional deployment across the UK.
• Investor Introductions: Introductions to patient, impact-aligned capital with experience in deep-tech cleantech.

https://pysaf.com

SENZO (Redefining Excellence in Learning Disability Health & Social care)

Patients with an intellectual/learning disability (LD) die on average 20 years earlier than those without, and 40% of deaths are “preventable”. This is wholly inequitable and unacceptable. The LeDeR report has documented this inequality since 2017 with no improvement since its inception.

Senzo charity will change this with expert lived experience combined with healthcare expertise in innovation and clinical pathway redesign.

Senzo will co-produce improvements to the access and quality of primary care annual health checks, healthcare action plans and secondary care specialists to improve the health and quality of life of LD adults.

Senzo has successfully delivered capillary (painless) blood sampling within the region to allow complete health screening and monitoring of drug and health conditions (eg epilepsy, thyroid disease).

Senzo has improved social inclusion and mental health well-being of LD adults through its social club and health-based activities.

Support needed:

• Legal, Governance and Operations: Support with legal, governance, human resources and operational setup as Senzo grows as a charity delivering national health and social change for a vulnerable population.
• Communications and Public Relations: Public relations expertise in communications, website presence and social media strategy, to help raise awareness of Senzo’s work and attract supporters, partners, funders, and collaborators.
• Marketing and Fundraising Strategy: Marketing, fundraising skills and strategy support. Sustainability of the interventions and for the charity is our number one priority.

http://www.senzo.org.uk

South East London Community Energy (SunCheck: Youth-led Solar Rescue & Green Skills Programme)

Across Britain, solar panels fitted on school rooftops years ago are now dusty, ageing and faulty, their monitoring switched off, so schools have no idea how little energy they produce. Imagine lifting each system’s output by even 10%: across thousands of schools that becomes a huge cut in emissions and money saved for stretched budgets. Now imagine the young people leaving those schools being the ones to make that happen, stepping into their first green career.

That is SunCheck. Much of that rooftop solar now sits forgotten, monitoring switched off and faults unnoticed. South East London Community Energy (SELCE) trains people aged 16 to 20 to audit these neglected systems, restore monitoring and verify carbon savings, mastering solar asset management, one of the fastest growing green careers. They earn the London Living Wage and are supported into real energy jobs. We are not installing new solar. We are training the next generation to rescue what we already have.

Support needed:

• Legal: Safeguarding for under-18s on rooftop sites, health & safety liability, data protection, and service agreements with councils/schools.
• Measuring Social Impact: We already work with universities to support impact measurement at a programme level, but we would like support to demonstrate system-level impact of our interventions. It is important that we can demonstrate how Play:cademy and other Transforming Autism programmes can help address the crisis in autism care.
• Financial advisory: Designing a self-sustaining solar asset-management service and a pricing model for borough commissions.
• Mentoring: 1-to-1 mentors for our young trainees: career guidance, confidence-building and employer introductions. ACA accreditation.
• Marketing & communications:promoting SunCheck to schools and councils and showcasing trainee stories.

https://selce.org.uk/

TortureID (TID)

Many refugees and people seeking asylum have survived torture, trafficking, sexual violence, and other serious human rights abuses. The effects can be devastating, including chronic pain, complex trauma, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Yet most survivors are never asked about what has happened to them when they come into contact with UK healthcare, leaving serious health needs unidentified, safeguarding risks unseen, and opportunities for care, protection, and rehabilitation missed.

TortureID has developed a practical, evidence-led model to change this. We combine trauma-informed health assessments, clinician training, practical tools, and guidance to improve the recognition, documentation, and response to survivors within routine healthcare.

We are at a pivotal stage: we have a strong proof of concept, growing demand, and a clear strategy for wider uptake. Support through the Stephen Lloyd Awards would help us strengthen the systems, evidence, communications, and partnerships needed to move from promising innovation to sustainable, wider impact.

Support Needs:

• Scaling systems change and influencing; Governance: Expert challenge and practical support to strengthen the systems-change pathway we have developed, helping us move from proof of concept to wider uptake. This includes ensuring evidence, learning, and survivor-informed insights effectively inform policy and practice.
• Impact, social value, and data collection: Support to evidence TID’s wider social value and present it convincingly to funders, NHS commissioners, professional bodies, and public services. Support also to ensure that as our use of sensitive data grows, data integrity and proportionate safeguards continue to be embedded in our systems.
• Communications strategy and positioning: Support to strengthen how TID explains and positions its complex and sensitive work, building our profile, improving our website and broader digital presence, and communicating in ways that build trust with survivor, clinical, and funder audiences.
• Fundraising strategy and financial sustainability: Advice and networks to help secure longer-term financial backing and diversify income streams, alongside support to strengthen budgeting and financial oversight.
• Impact Measurement/ROI: Development of frameworks to measure and demonstrate the environmental, social and economic impact of our reuse initiatives, creating compelling ROI models for funders and partners.
• Board recruitment and advisory networks: Support to diversify our Board and wider network of advisors, ambassadors, and supporters, particularly through survivor leadership, finance expertise, and well-connected individuals who can help raise TID’s profile, extend our reach, and open up longer-term strategic and funding opportunities.

https://tortureid.org/

VRC Logistics (Vape Recovery and Compliance)

VRC is a specialist environmental and social impact initiative tackling the growing problem of vape waste. The project aims to create safe, compliant and scalable solutions for the collection and recycling of discarded vape products, with an initial focus on prisons where vape use is
widespread and dedicated disposal infrastructure is limited.

By combining environmental responsibility, WEEE compliance, lithium battery safety and rehabilitation opportunities, VRC seeks to transform a growing waste challenge into a positive social and environmental outcome. Through the proposed Vape Custodian Programme (VCP), prisoners would be supported to take part in structured environmental activities that encourage responsibility, skills development and employability. Working in partnership with Recycle-IT! CIC and Entrepreneurs Unlocked CIC, VRC aims to create cleaner environments, safer waste management practices and meaningful rehabilitation pathways.

Central to this vision is the development of a dedicated network of VRC Recovery Stations, creating infrastructure specifically designed to recover vape-related waste and generate measurable environmental and social impact. Following successful implementation within prisons, the long-term ambition is to establish a national recovery network that can be expanded into education, local authorities, festivals, workplaces and other sectors facing similar vape
waste challenges.

Support needed:

• Strategic Introductions: Connections to prisons, HMPPS, local authorities, and public sector organisations
• Strategic Partnerships: Securing partnerships with organisations involved in waste management, environmental
  compliance and recycling infrastructure.
• Product Manufacturing Expertise: Product design and manufacturing expertise to help refine and develop the VRC Recovery
  Stations.
• Impact Measurement & Evaluation: Impact measurement and evaluation support to help evidence environmental, social and
  rehabilitation outcomes.
• Legal, Compliance & Governance: Guidance on WEEE compliance, waste regulations and best practice for scaling nationally.
• Funding Connections: Connections to funders, investors and grant programmes that can support pilot delivery and future growth.

http://vrclogistics.co.uk

The Washing Machine Project

The Washing Machine Project (TWMP) was founded on a belief that washing clothes shouldn’t hold anyone back. 50% of the world spends up to 20 hours per week washing clothes by hand. More often than not, it’s women and girls who carry this burden. Yet major humanitarian and development agendas have ignored and overlooked laundry as a problem, and as a barrier to opportunity.

TWMP is here to change that; unlocking time, water, and opportunity through manual washing machines. The Divya manual washing machine, that TWMP has developed and patented, halves the water used to wash clothes and reduces the time taken by 75%.

With our network of partners, TWMP provides essential support and maintenance training: working towards an ecosystem of change around the machine itself. Now, we are scaling our impact to reach 1,000,000 people by 2030, all in collaboration with the communities we serve.

Support needed:

• • Funding: To support the development and the deployment of the Divya manual washing machine into new communities.
  • Fundraising Strategy: We are seeking pro-bono fundraising consultancy to support our small team as we expand into unfamiliar territory, specifically to help us maximise individual giving, navigate capital appeals, and build a robust major donor framework. With our first-ever individual giving campaign on the horizon and recent interest from a number of high-net-worth individuals, expert guidance would be invaluable in helping us strategically pitch to, secure, and steward these high-value audiences effectively.
  • Expanding NGO network: We would appreciate strategic support to expand our geographic reach, particularly in India, by connecting with new distribution partners and NGOs. Specifically, we want to partner with organisations to procure or distribute our machines through innovative channels, such as microfinance institutions (MFIs) or entrepreneurship models, ultimately scaling our positive impact and footprint.
  • Financial Advisory Services: A nonprofit financial advisory service would help to ensure our long-term sustainability as we navigate a significant organisational expansion, which includes establishing an Indian entity and diversifying our funding streams through NGO procurement. These strategic moves will increase our accounting complexity, and we would really benefit from guidance and additional capacity to supplement our existing finance team during this transition.

  https://www.thewashingmachineproject.org/