Gypsy website is savvy winner
July 24th, 2008 by hbourneOk so I’ve stolen my headline from the Sun’s article but hey it’s a goodun.
This morning I went to the UK Catalyst Award ceremony which was a glittering affair attended by nearly 200 people with an interest in how technology is being used to tackle social issues. The winners included Gordon Brown’s favourite (yes he was there) savvychavvy.com which brings gypsy travellers together online to discuss common issues and change society’s perceptions about them.
Also on the list was Wheelies – the world’s first disability nightclub – which exists in Second Life and enables disabled people to link up, chat and talk about shared problems. Take a look at the full list of winners and let us know what you think. Which other social issues could be tackled in this way? For example I think cancer patients could share experience of chemotherapy via Twitter or other social networks (maybe they are already).
We’ re using these stories to inspire others, and also to call for Government to champion this approach and for investors to come forward to scale up some of these ideas. All thoughts welcomed!
There is already lots of chatter online about this, including:
Gordon Brown speech on Moblog


July 25th, 2008 at 10:59 am
There’s another post about this here – with a clip of Gordon Brown’s speech
http://kevinlong.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/social-technology-projects-praised-by-prime-minister/