It  is especially poignant when unemployment leads to having to register on job seekers allowance. We hear it as the millions, and in Exeter, the number sits at around 2,186 and 10,196 for Devon (December 2011 data).  We can empathise with the difficult state of the labour market and how job creation has slowed down. Take a moment, because the reality is that this is affecting individuals, their home in many cases, and their mental well-being. This is about individuals who are in some ways like you and me.

The truth is that it can happen to any of us. The young and older people we meet have had different life situations affect their ability to enter or stay in the job market from health, bereavement, dyslexia, complex family situations, becoming a carer, or leaving the care system and other factors that somehow feels like a situation any of us could find ourselves or our children in, if our good fortunes and health somehow took a different turn.

If this feels personal, it is meant to. We, at Forward 25, meet some great people and talents who shine in the right setting and context. They have all wanted to do a great job and know that they have contributed something worthwhile.  We sometimes talk to people who say, but if they prioritise the right things, then, they will have money spare.  Whilst on job seekers allowance, poverty can be real and constant.  This, with a few pounds spent here and there, turns into pennies.

Forward 25 are working with unemployed young and older people providing workspaces, assistance with job applications, and helping to keep motivation high. that is just one way, and our way.  So, what we ask is that next time you see the unemployment figures, the news on the millions or the thousands, think that somebody round the corner deserves a chance and start to work out what you can do to help them find their way to their good fortune.

What’s so special about it?
It starts with people pitching their business ideas, teams coming together to build it and a presentation on Sunday evening. The business ideas can range from the purely commercial “I have always had this idea and now I would like you all as a team to help me build it” to plain fun ideas that just brings some people together to try out something new. If you want to truly understand how random the ideas and products can be, just check out the names of the teams. Examples include Espionage, tripstogether, eatinthestreet, ridemagnet, weteach.us, locongo, and happy tribe.

And then…
Teams form and the work begins. In between generating ideas, looking into the detail, and then starting to prototype or build, you get board meetings that help you shape the business side. You discuss how feasible it is and how exactly it is going to work. Then you have the mentors that pop round and share their experiences, give tips, solutions, challenge your ideas. You can even test out an idea that you may not have pitched but may be working on yourself, and they will give you time and listen.

Who is it for?

With the Launch48 weekend, not everyone needs to be a developer or a budding entrepreneur! Just pure interest in tech-based business whether it is web, facebook, or mobile is enough to make you a valuable part of the team. We all know that building an online business is about more than just the platform and code itself, it is about the sales, marketing, design, finance, and most of all – great ideas and angles, and you work on all that throughout the weekend. There is guidance all the way, people to ask if you feel stuck and the best thing is that no one says why the hell did you not know that already.

Who do you meet?

The level of networking is something that cannot be missed out, there is a buzz with new ideas and you really get into making it work. You meet people who are simply curious to those who are seriously knowledgeable about startups. This means that you get to hear those little tips, tricks and trade secrets. You get to meet people, who say, if you get stuck on that idea of yours, get in touch, I will help you out. How often does that happen in a networking event?

You get stuff done and make real progress. It is amazing to see how much can be achieved in one weekend, and the organisers work very hard to make sure that all the angles are covered.

So to wrap up..

Teams, ideas, and real buzz for tech startups all in one weekend. This is the first time that Launch48 have come to Exeter and we will be hosting this at the Innovation Centre at the University of Exeter Campus. There’s lots to learn and a lot to give whatever your skill level and background. You see the process of getting a startup off the ground from start to delivery, make some great friends, and possibly find yourself in a startup team that runs with the idea after the weekend.

We are really looking forward to the coming weekend, it is a great opportunity for all those with ideas, and curiosity about tech startups in the South West of England to get involved. Book your tickets, find out more and we look forward to meeting you at the Innovation Centre, University of Exeter Campus at 6pm on Friday the 2nd of March 2012.

There are discounted prices for students, early bird tickets and talk to us (01392 580525) if you need to book group tickets.

We are working with young people not in employment, education, training, self-employment, freelancing or entrepreneurship.

This is a community effort which is local and a real opportunity for innovation and game changing in the support that we provide. This applies at least to a section of our young people who have aspirations towards working in the knowledge sector.

We don’t have all the knowledge and know-how to formulate the business plan, and this is where we turn to the community of experts. With your experience and knowledge of innovation, education, social enterprises, funding opportunities, financial planning, writing skills, marketing, and much much more, we would very much appreciate your input, ideas, amendments and assistance.

There are three ways to get involved:
1. Come and join us for our New Year Pizza and Planning session on 18th January 2012 at out office. Drop in between 3.30pm and 7pm.
2. Email us on team@forward25.com with a little bit about you and we will start our conversation and get moving on ideas.
3. Phone Rupa on 07908 766971 (UK) and set up a suitable time to get a discussion moving.
4. Set up a meeting to come and see us in person.

Whichever way you can contribute and get involved in our business planning, we would very much appreciate your input. Please help us spread the word.

This community working session will be closed on the 30th of January 2012.

Participating in the panel discussion on Engaging the Disenfranchised with CBM, the workspaces & projects pilot was presented highlighting our current goals which is to open up the project to students and teachers. It was noted that disenfranchised young people whether it is because of social circumstances or other reasons need to be considered in this debate. However, it was clear from the excellent projects highlighted by Kyle McCormick, Deborah Donnelly-McLay, Bruce Dickson and also out project, that we need to get over some hurdles such as:
1. the approach appears to be small scale and difficult to transfer to an education system wide solution
2. peer to peer by young people, STEM ambassadors and employees willing to participate and individuals such as “Mobile Silver Partners” put forward through the brilliant project carried out by Bruce shows that there is an opportunity to manage the one-to-one through community engagement
3. it is the personalised approach that is getting through, how can that be sustainable as it will clearly seem like a luxury especially in the current climate and most definitely for some countries.

The discussion continues for another day, and there is clearly no one answer that will solve these issues. We have definitely got a long way to go, but what has been highlighted is that it is certainly possible at grassroots level to engage the disenfranchised and we now need to work with that to get to the next stage.

Check out the twitter stream on ‘computermath’.

4 billion

Reached in 1975

The total population of Asia in 2011 is over 4,140,336,500 (over 60% of the world’s population).

4 billion people worldwide do not use toilet paper.

About 4 billion people follower an Abrahamic religion, including Christianity (2.2 billion), Islam (1.6 billion) and Judaism (18 million).

5 billion

Reached on 11 July 1987

Over 5 billion people now own a mobile phone.

The amount of people which the earth’s resources can reasonably support is about 5 billion.

It is estimated that about 5 billion people worldwide suffer from tooth decay.

6 billion

Reached on 12 October 1999

The population of the Northern hemisphere is about 90% of the world’s total (around 6 billion).

The Northern hemisphere contains 67% of the Earth’s land as well as most of the largest cities and areas of highest population density.

There are 6 billion right-handed people in the world.

7 billion

Reached on 31 October 2011

Some believe the population of the world before the biblical “great flood” was over 7 billion.

If stood shoulder to shoulder we would reach around the globe 87 times, although we could all fit on the island of Cyprus.

The population of the world today is about 6% of the estimated number of people who have ever lived (about 115 billion).

We are kickstarting this project. Watch out for some more information, but in the meantime, here is a map to explore the area.

View Larger Map

Wikipedia Entry for Exeter

As a result of the State of the World’s Midwifery report, there were country specific documents for the the 58 countries. These would be useful data to upload to Wikipedia in an attempt to heighten awareness by linking to the SoWMy report. In line with the content that can be found on the health pages at country level in Wikipedia, specific data relating to maternal mortality rate and other key indicators were highlighted as content for publication purposes including the maternal mortality rate for 2010, 2008 and 1990; under 5 mortality rate, the neonatal mortality rate as a percentage of under 5′s; number of midwives per 1000 births and lifetime risk of maternal death. We developed statements that could hold the relevant information for each country and also link to the report.

Background
Wikipedia is organised in sections and each country has its own Wikipedia page, for example see Malawi. Some country pages already have information about maternal and child mortality rates. Most of the figures already mentioned were out-dated so needed updating with the 2010 figures from the report. Our aim was to include this paragraph on the main page for each country, but discovered that the majority of countries have a specific page for highlighting health statistics, for example see Health in Afghanistan. Where these sub-pages existed and a direct link existed from the main page to the sub-page, the paragraph was inserted within the relevant area. If you now search for State of the World’s Midwifery, you now get a great spread of information across countries (see searching wikipedia). By completing this project, we have also been able to impact on the google search optimisation for the report specifically for a country (for example, State of the World’s Midiwfery Tanzania brings the Wikipedia entries to number 5 ont he first page) and a search for ‘Midwifery Tanzania’ brings the information from Wikipedia to Page 2 (see wikipedia). With this type of impact, we hope to assist with the wider dissemination of the report findings and improve general understanding of the issues facing midwifery as published through the report.

Process
Wikipedia requires a user-name and login prior to making amendments to the published text. When uploading a paragraph, it is possible to highlight certain words to link to their specific Wikipedia entry, such as the United Nations Population Fund and Millennium Development Goals. As this is a way to promote to SoWMy Report, the text ‘State of the World’s Midwifery’ was linked directly to the report website, as well as additional links to UNPFA and MDG Indicators website in the ‘External Links’ section. However, due to recommendations from the Wikipedia Editors, the report link placed in each country page or health sub-section was linked directly to the country profile pdf link per country. This could only be included on ‘Health in….’ pages as the Country Profile related to midwifery is not specific enough to the knowledge of a country as a whole. On certain countries Wikipedia page the entire paragraph was deleted. This was due to the page already being recognised as a ‘good article’, they felt no further information was needed.

Recommendations for future updates for Wikipedia
As Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, any mistakes made can be deleted by anyone with no notification or explanation, which happened on this project on a few occasions. Therefore, it is recommended that regular maintenance takes place. However, editors are also overseeing changes, therefore, it may be possible for other authors and editors to also make corrections as required.

Another problem we encountered was that because we were editing 58 pages in a short amount of time it could have been considered ‘spamming’ by certain website editors and we were warned by one to confirm that we were not ‘vandalising’ certain Wikipedia pages.

When researching the different country’s Wikipedia pages, we needed to establish how to get the information out to as many people as possible. We found that although a lot of the countries involved had specific ‘Health in…’sections, some of them had clearly been neglected and weren’t informative or concise. Where this was the case, we included the paragraph on their main Wikipedia page, linked to the UNFPA and MDG Wiki articles and left out the external links.

The ideal next step will be to complete a Wikipedia page on The State of the World’s Midwifery report. This will enable all the countries to have a direct link to the page, which will give them an overview of the report and link externally to the stateoftheworldsmidwifery.com website.

Midwifery app creation – Exeter from Ross Gill on Vimeo.