Winners of 2016 Stephen Lloyd Awards announced
After two rounds of frenzied pitching sessions the winners of the Stephen Lloyd Awards 2016 were announced in central London last night. The two winners, who will each receive £20,000 alongside support from legal firm Bates Wells Braithwaite (BWB) were revealed as Campaign Bootcamp and Canute.
The eponymous awards were set up in the wake of Stephen Lloyd’s unexpected death in 2014. Lloyd was an enthusiastic supporter of social enterprise and charity; perhaps one of his most notable legacies was having the idea for the Community Interest Company legal form.
The aim of the awards is to help create success by finding and nurturing innovative ideas and projects that can lead to practical, sustainable social change.
Of the 65 entrants, ten were chosen to pitch their social enterprises in front of an invited audience of previous winners, BWB staff and many from the social enterprise sector. Each was given just 60 seconds to get their idea across and encourage support. Master of ceremonies Liam Black proved ruthless with an old fashioned car horn to signal the end of each minute.
From there rooms had been set aside for only slightly longer presentations – ten minutes this time. Ideas included lawyers keen to plug the gap in ignorance about sexual consent in an era of sexting and sex education via smartphones, to a way of encouraging the physiotherapy necessary to impede the march of cystic fibrosis by linking it to gaming.
Campaign Bootcamp train people to be more effective campaigners, helping them learn many facets of campaigning including strategy, tactics for working with the media and fundraising. Founder Johnny Chatterton, who pitched at the event, said: “We are delighted and honoured. This award will allow us to focus on supporting marginalised people across the UK to get their voice heard.
"Our research has found a wide and growing democracy gap in the UK. Politics and campaigning is excluding millions of people because they don't believe their voice will be heard. This award means we can get to work right away on closing that gap.”
In an effort to halt the decline in reading Braille, Canute have come up with a kind of Kindle for blind people. Only 4% of blind or visually impaired children in the UK are Braille literate. Part of the reason for that is the amount of paper needed to produce it; reading Lord of the Rings in braille would require a stack of paper about three feet high, for example.
In his speech accepting the award, founder Ed Rogers admitted that: “We would probably not be able to go and do the testing but for the money.” The money means that more prototypes can now be produced for trials that will now take place in two schools in Worcester and Dublin.
Photo credit: Patrik02
