What do pennies, good neighbours and farmers have in common?
They have all benefit from a connected society. Well, maybe not the pennies personally, but the hundreds of charities they help certainly do.
Bringing people together online, who might never have met, can be the start of amazing things. The Internet and computers have shown themselves to be great facilitators, bringing communities closer together and creating new ones.
This year, the BT Connected Society Award is looking for finalists who epitomise this.
Since the Tech4Good Awards started, our main sponsors, BT, have celebrated ingenious projects that have been connecting communities and helping people realise the benefits for being online. Here are some of our previous winners.
Pennies turning into pounds (millions of pounds) for charities
These days, its more usual for customers to pay by card, meaning there’s no spare change for the charity tin at the checkout.
The Pennies Foundation saw a creative opportunity to bring charities and supporters back together.
They help charities raise money, by asking customers, paying by card, to add a few pence to their bill, either in-store or online.
Over the last 6 years, they have raised over 9 million pounds, taken 38,000 donations and helped over 200 charities. Not bad for a couple of pennies donated here and there.
Everybody needs good neighbours
Tech for good is bringing out the good neighbour in people. When times are hard and budgets are tight, communities need this spirit more than ever.
Neighbourly.com helps business and local projects come together. It’s a simple social media platform for people looking to give something back and local projects looking for help.
Winner of BT Fundraising Award, it helps people donate, time, money or surplus stock, like food, to local projects and charities.
Businesses and local people have pledged over £3.7million in funds, over 10,400 volunteer days, and directly supported over 1,500 projects.
One partner, Marks & Spencer, have redistributed over 140 tonnes of surplus food.
On a mission to get farmers online
Rural communities suffer the most from not being able to get online.
They often don’t understand the positive impact it could have on their lives and businesses.
Devon-based social enterprise, Cosmic, has been working hard to change this for over 20 years.
Our BT Get IT winner, got local people’s attention using a mobile space shuttle as a IT training base. They also targeted tech shy farmers at the weekly cattle market.
Their mission to show locals why society is better when its digitally connected.
Is a more connected society your mission?
Entries are currently open for the Tech4Good Awards until 8 May. To enter your project or nominate one visit our website.
