2017 Applicants: Updates

How have our shortlisted projects developed?

We are all looking forward to seeing how the finalists’ projects have developed over the last five weeks at our finalé event on Tuesday 27th June. Summaries of the progress they have made since being shortlisted for the Stephen Lloyd Awards are presented below. Each project varies by nature, as some are still in early stages of development, whilst others were more developed to begin with.  Some summaries are provided as videos, whilst others have given us a general outline, or a detailed report. Prior to giving your votes next week, please have a look through their achievements to understand the projects, and how they have developed and progressed.

Cornerstone

The Local Cornerstone three year plan produced the following work stream activity looking at issues such as Quality and Service Delivery, People, Governance, Finance and Communication.  Colleagues from across the organisation were involved as were some of the people we support and their families.

The Care Inspectorate and Scottish Social Services Council have agreed to work with us as we introduce this new model of care – we are supporting the Care Inspectorate with how our model compliments the new National Care Standards.

The Branch Leaders and Coaches have been appointed and our first cohort of self organising neighbourhood teams have been identified.  They will commence their training over the summer.

The Cornerstone Foundation was launched in April 2017.

The ‘Tech on Tour’ events are being held across the country for colleagues, people we support and families with the new technology being implemented from September 2017.

The central services review has been completed and Cornerstone Central has been established with our Responders in place to look after the Team Members to allow them to spend more of their time with the people we support and less on process and paperwork.

An important part of the testing of this new way of working is the sharing of our story so hopefully we can inspire others to look at things differently with the ultimate intention of caring and supporting even more people to live a valued life – a life they choose.  A key ingredient missing and something we are seeking funding for is the Storyteller in Residence.  We would love to have a powerful way of sharing the stories that will come out of our journey – the stories of the people we support and their families  and the stories from the social care workforce.  With your support we have produced a film capturing two stories which I will show during my input to the session next week.  The voices on the film are more powerful than mine!

Human Language

A video of the progress made:


Mindful Music

Download their update as a pdf here.

Playphysio

Download their update as a pdf here.

Positive Boundaries

Download their update as a pdf here.

SafetyNet Technologies

Because of the contribution during our development phase, we have been able to commit it to our crowdfunding campaign to finalise and develop 100 PISCES in order to do further trials with. The amount itself contributes to 4 PISCES being developed, but the activity created momentum within the campaign to entice other major contributions, which has now raised us to more than £26,000! This allows for us to develop 50 PISCES in total and conduct about 5 trials with different scientific partners.

The network within Stephen Lloyd Awards has also greatly contributed to our progress. We are getting the support of various skilled experts who are giving us advice on investment readiness and commercialisation, reviewing our material, and providing due diligence support. We are also working with Mark Tasker and Lucinda Ellen of BWB LLP to enshrine our sustainable and community development goals into our company constitution. This is exactly what will set us up for success and we are greatly appreciative for the enthusiasm and support we’ve received so far. We’re looking forward to continuing these relations! 

Settle

A video summarising the work undertaken during their development phase is here. The password to access it is development-phase. 

Sky School

Download their update as a pdf here.

Vocalens

First thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to work with you and grow alongside with you. Being top ten and part of your network has been propelling us forward to truly transform the lives of millions of people with visual impairment. Losing eyesight is one of the fast growing ageing issues which means many of us are at risk. We are committed to building a technology that increases independence and overall wellbeing of people with visual impairment in mobility and reading.
The last 2 months have been very challenging. The technology Director of Vocalens dropped out of the team, leaving us, the commercial team empty handed. It was a year and half of sweat and blood, walking in the shoes of our users to find the solution, and his leave was quite traumatizing. With the coaches and mentors from Accelerator at Cambridge University behind us, am happy to say the team is back on moving stronger than ever. “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” certainly holds true in this case.
Very happy to share that in the past 6 weeks, we brought on board a dedicated and experienced software developer who has developed the technology from scratch based on our 1.5 years of users study / ethnographic research. Our new software developer, the master innovator is Adam, a PhD Candidate in Machine Learning at Cambridge University, top 10 world math Olympiad (representing the UK), and a member of Mensa. In just 6 weeks we went from nothing to having a new technology delivery strategy with a proof of concept and working demo on Android device. We are en route to do user trials and reiteration on the technology based on user feedback in July & August (Stephen Lloyds award will help to cover the costs of field testing). In fact, for our Minimum Viable Product, we are integrating with an off-the-shelf product (which with Stephen Lloyds award we were able to purchase) so that we can quickly test for traction and receive crucial market data on the product. Through Stephen Lloyds, we have also engaged with Hogen Lovells in legal/intellectual property strategy as we are creating a proprietary technology that is aiming to transform the lives of millions of people with visual impairment.
Please note, we have rebranded: Vocalens is now called Vokolenzo.
Stephen Lloyds competition has been a motivation for us to plow through. Most importantly, our love and dedication for our users. Our users are who we live for, serving them, so they can live a high-quality life. We certainly cannot do this alone and we need YOU, to help make Vokolenzo a reality. Imagine where 2 million people in the UK can independently and safely navigate from one point to another or gain knowledge and make decisions by independently accessing any written information. From legal support to financial model and impact measurement, your talents can transform the lives of over 2 million people in the UK.