2024 is the 200th Anniversary of the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution). You may have seen their tv commercials. To celebrate this epic event, Greenwich Yacht Club is holding an open-invitation yacht race on Saturday June 29. This creates a rare opportunity for affordable sponsorship of such a race on the River Thames. GYC is raising money for the RNLI without any financial gain for itself, and it is therefore considered by the river authorities to be a non-commercial event.
The Event
The Tower Lifeboat Race will be from Greenwich to Erith and back, and we are inviting entries from several other clubs based on the River Thames and in Kent. What will make it a unique event for competitors is that rather than a single start time, they can each choose to start when they want. Results of this “Start when you like” race will be based on the time taken to complete the course, and the application of an official handicap system that allows for different boat sizes and speeds.
Supporting GYC’s race, and thus the RNLI, is a great opportunity for any business that would benefit from a positive association with the RNLI’s values and high esteem in which it is held, plus sports and leisure activities on the River Thames more generally. It is particularly relevant for a business that has contact or dealings with any authorities and official bodies relevant to the workings of the river.
River authorities
Our racing calendar event and risk assessment plans have to be approved by the Port of London Authority.
We must advise people manning the Thames Barrier when they can expect race traffic.
We liaise with Thames Clippers and other organisations about our mutual use of the river.
GYC is a member of the RYA (Royal Yachting Association).
Our members’ safety on the river is supported by the crews at the RNLI Tower Lifeboat Station based at Waterloo.
We are also inviting local Royal Greenwich councillors to come along at the back end of the race and stay for the trophy award ceremony.
Media coverage
We will announce the race and supply updates through press releases to national sailing media and media serving London, including Greenwich-focused social media.
We will also regularly feature it on our own social media.
The sponsor could engage with their own trade or professional sector media, and post content on their own social media.
Add details of your involvement to your website, with post-race images of the event.
All our communications, the winner’s trophy, and an Eventbrite page for competitors to register can include the sponsor’s name.
The sponsor may also choose to attend on the day, invite some guests to our architectural award winning Clubhouse, and present the trophy in person – creating unique corporate hospitality and PR opportunities.
Next step
For further information, to ask any questions, and to discuss fees, please begin by sending your contact details in an email to [email protected]
The sooner you sign up as a sponsor, the more benefits your business will enjoy!
Governments the world over are encouraging more people to use bicycles, and various forms of crowdsourcing are used to support their efforts. This article looks at co-creation to map popular cycle routes in a city; automated sensors and data collection to monitor traffic levels in smart cities and control the flow; and the use of civic crowdfunding to steer local authority decision-making and influence local residents and other stakeholders.
At a macro level the benefits appear to be evident. Reduced traffic levels reduce congestion and air pollution. The built environment needs less space used for parking. A fitter and healthier population puts less pressure on the health services.
At a personal level, cyclists feel empowered by measures they are taking to protect the environment and improve their physical fitness. And right now, cycling is being promoted to reduce the number of people using public transport to help maintain social distancing.
The GB Bicycle Association reported that in the first full month of lockdown, April 2020, sales of bikes priced at between £400 and £1000 more than doubled compared to April 2019 (rising by 112% in number, 99% in value). A UK Government scheme offering online vouchers for use as payment towards repairing old bicycles to a state of roadworthiness crashed under the weight of overwhelming demand.
Co-creating route maps
Road safety remains the paramount issue, more so among female cyclists. A crowdsourcing project in the Indian city of Bengaluru, run by the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), has asked the city’s cyclists for details of their favoured routes through the city, and where they would like dedicated cycle lanes installed. DULT’s aim is to team up with the city civic body and create an initial 34 km network of routes in the outer parts of the city before working into the centre, eventually making the whole city more cycling friendly.
It follows a similar exercise carried out in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Car ownership stands at 93% of households, the third highest level of any city in the world, and much of the city centre is a cycle no-go zone. The bold efforts of Jeffrey Lim, a keen cyclist and vintage cycle restorer, saw city authorities earmark a $765,000 budget to create the city’s first cycle lanes.
Work on the KL cycle map. Photograph: Jeffrey Lim
Smart city traffic management
Many major cities have bike-sharing schemes. In 2015, Barcelona launched its “Bicycle Strategy for Barcelona” government measure, which encouraged increased bicycle use as a habitual mode of urban transport. Its ‘Bicing’ bike share scheme was suspended when emergency measures were first introduced to tackle Covid-19 in April 2020, though from the start of June the network was re-opened with 97 new hire stations planned, and more than 1,000 additional new cycles available.
Beyond bike-sharing, Copenhagen has installed intelligent traffic signals that prioritise bikes and buses over cars. This system can potentially reduce bus travel time by 5–20% and cycle travel time by 10%. Copenhagen has also built a citywide network of protected bike lanes, as laid out in its strategic plans published in 2011. Local authorities across the country collect as much data as possible, both quantitative and qualitative, to inform their decisions on anything related to cycling.
Transport for London similarly uses video sensors with artificial intelligence capability at 20 locations across London to detect the volume of different modes of transport, especially cyclists and pedestrians. This data will be used to assess demand for new cycling routes in the city.
Civic crowdfunding for cycle routes
Crowdfunding has been a successful way for several cycling related startups to sell products and launch a business through selling equity. I’ve seen projects for cycle wear that lights up at night time, bicycles made of bamboo, even a cycle repair business based on a barge travelling up and down English canals. Though there does remain an element of hostility from a minority of motorists – and pedestrians, understandably, when confronted by a cyclist using the pavement.
Hostility, or at least deserved wariness, runs both ways. I‘m a regular cyclist, and I’ve had two shoulder operations due to accidents caused by a car drivers and a passenger. I also know what it’s like to be abused by drivers for things like not being able to go as fast as they’d like me to, or for being annoyed when they turn across me without indicating. So I do have a personal interest in dedicated cycle routes.
Critics of such routes complain they restrict road widths for vehicles, actually increasing congestion and journey times, and pushing higher traffic levels on to roads that were previously less busy.
Civic crowdfunding can not only raise some of the cost of cycle routes to influence local authority decision-makers (more usually design and feasibility studies than actual construction costs), but can also operate as a marketing initiative to influence residents and other stakeholders in a community.
This strategy worked well in Denver (fantastic place, 360 days a year with sunshine!), when Colorado’s biggest city built its Arapahoe Street protected bike lane. Community organisations engaged residents and business owners early in the design process, and this made a huge difference. The Downtown Denver Partnership, a local business group, initiated the project based on what it had heard from business leaders. To build on this public support, it launched a crowdfunding campaign to cover $35,000 of the design costs.
A civic crowdfunding project for a dedicated cycle route in Arapahoe Street, Denver, Colorado, earned the early support of the local office of the Gates Family Foundation. Good crowdfunding is good marketing.
“Letting communities vote with their dollars isn’t just about budgets. It is much more about letting local residents and businesses know early on about the project and allowing them to participate in a meaningful way,” said Kate Gasparro, Graduate Research Fellow of Sustainable Design and Construction, Stanford University.
Three ways crowdsourcing is boosting cycling
Whether it’s research among cyclists drawing their favoured routes on paper maps, sophisticated traffic management technology in smart cities, or civic crowdfunding to let all elements of a community input ideas as well as raise money, the effects are boosting the takeup of cycling the world over.
I originally wrote this article for Crowdsourcing Week. Please contact me if there’s anything you’d like to ask or discuss about running a crowdfunding project. Email me at [email protected]
In October 2019, the activist movement Extinction Rebellion disrupted daily routines in major cities around the world to highlight the dangers from man-made climate change, and that time is running out to do anything meaningful about it. In London, demonstrators glued themselves to office building doors, the pavement, trains and cars – even to the top of an aircraft about to take off!
They also ran a UK crowdfunding project with a target of £1 million to fund their activities, maybe even to pay some of the fines their members picked up – just a guess. As at October 29 the crowdfunding is still running and they’ve reached nearly £965,000, they’re almost there.
Though within the 30-50 year time frame we are usually told is going to be decisive, some people believe there are other threats that ought to be taken just as seriously, if not more, from artificial intelligence and robotics.
Robot threat to jobs
Many of us have become accustomed to doom-mongers’ comments about the threats to livelihoods from robots doing repetitive and menial work. Inevitable consequences usually list mass unemployment, with non-working people subsidized by far higher taxes levied on those still in work. How would norms of social inclusion and the rule of law cope with an ever more divisive and polarized world of haves and have nots? And that includes having a sense of purpose as much as anything else.
Stuart Russell, a professor of computer science at Berkeley, California, and one of the world’s leading experts in AI, has weighed in with his own opinions in a new book published this month titled “Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control.”
He asks readers to imagine a scenario in which a comparable risk is external, one in which advanced aliens from another world email the United Nations and say “we’re coming, we’ll be with you in 30 to 50 years.” Would our planet’s best minds be mobilized to prepare for this extra-terrestrial incursion more than we are preparing for the creation of our own super-humanly intelligent machines?
Pace of technology leaves controls behind
Technology continues to develop at a faster and faster pace. Machine learning-powered artificial intelligence is increasingly likely to enable automation to take on more complex tasks thought were once thought to be ‘machine-proof.’
Flying aircraft, as an example, is a highly skilled profession, not one of the highly repetitive jobs that are supposedly under most threat from robots. Airline pilots can earn substantial incomes and generally receive public admiration. How close are we to that changing, with their role totally automated?
The Probability of Job Automation By Occupation
Source: Office of National Statistics
Lockheed Martin, the US global aerospace corporation, is currently sponsoring an open innovation challenge to combine AI, machine learning and fully autonomous flight. The goal is to create an AI framework that could pilot racing drones through high-speed aerial courses without any GPS, data relay or human intervention.
420 teams from 81 countries have been whittled down to nine finalists who will compete in four races in the coming months. The winning team will win $1 million plus an extra $250,000 if their AI drone can beat a human-piloted drone: the challenge-winning drone will race the fastest 2019 DRL Allianz World Champion pilot at the end of the season.
However, there are often unintended consequences. In a less sporting context, weaponization of drone technology has already been achieved. In 2016, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) carried out its first successful drone attack, killing two ‘opponents’ in northern Iraq. Terrorist groups are increasingly using drones and elementary artificial intelligence in attacks. Improved AI could prove a formidable threat, allowing non-state actors to automate killing on a massive scale, creating incidents of mass destruction.
Terrorist groups aren’t the only parties involved. Stuart Russell’s book points out Israel has developed an autonomous “loitering munition” called Harop, which can hunt and destroy objects it classes as hostile. Anti-personnel microdrones equipped with facial-recognition systems and explosive weaponry might already exist. Slaughterbots, they are called.
At the time when Extinction Rebellion were disrupting major cities around the world, and targeting hubs of finance, media and transport, Russell put forward the notion that the leading tech firms in Silicon Valley and China must learn to accept regulation in the area of weaponry. “Let’s hope it doesn’t require a Chernobyl-sized disaster (or worse),” he warns, “to overcome the industry’s resistance.”
But whilst authors and activists can point and warn of the dangers, I have to ask the question again about “who can introduce enforceable regulation, and act with whose authority?” Any suggestions or comments out there?
Half the food wasted in the UK is thrown away at home. In total, a third of all the food produced in the world is wasted. It represents an annual value of $1 trillion and it’s one of our planet’s greatest problems. There are millions of people who don’t have enough, deforestation to create grazing and arable land afflicts ecosystems for farmers to produce too much, and animal methane gases contribute to global warming and climate change.
Co-founders Tessa Clarke and Saasha Celestial-One knew each other from their MBA studies at Stanford Business School where they became firm friends. They hatched an idea to start OLIO in 2015, an app to connect neighbours with each other and with local businesses so surplus food can be shared, not thrown away. This can be fresh or packaged food nearing its sell-by date in local stores, spare home-grown vegetables, bread from a local baker, or the groceries left in the fridge when people go away.
They launched the OLIO app in 2015 and now have almost 25,000 volunteers operating in over 50 countries. I met Tessa recently and she kindly agreed to share her story with me.
How did you first test for public support of your idea to engage the crowd in a breakthrough solution?
We carried out some market research using SurveyMonkey and we found that 1 in 3 people are “physically pained” about throwing away good food. We then set up a WhatsApp group with 12 people and found they were very enthusiastic about sharing food that would otherwise go to waste. From that we received incredibly valuable feedback and suggestions.
With the support of our first investor we built the MVP (minimal viable product) version of the app. And working like crazy, exactly 5 months after we’d incorporated the company (we were Mums on a mission with no time to spare!), we launched the app in the App Store on 9th July 2015, quickly followed by Google Play three weeks later. The very first version of the app was extremely basic, and could only be used in five postcodes in North London. But that didn’t matter, we were live and ready to bring food sharing to the world!
And what’s your growth been like since those early days?
We’re absolutely thrilled that we’ve now got 750,000 users plus 25,000 brand Ambassadors (volunteers) all over the world. And together they’ve shared over a million portions of food – which is the environmental equivalent of taking almost 3 million car miles off the road!
How do you cope with different food safety regulations on person-to-person food exchange in all these different countries?
Food safety and regulation is something we take very seriously. All the food redistribution undertaken by our “Food Waste Heroes” – who collect unsold food from local food businesses and share it via the app – is governed by an incredibly robust Food Safety Management System. And the neighbour-to-neighbour sharing is covered in our standard T&Cs.
You’ve already mentioned a “first investor.” What was it like, raising funding to be able to dedicate yourselves to OLIO and make it grow?
Our very first investor was Simpleweb, who are a development agency in Bristol, and they absolutely loved the problem we are trying to solve and so wanted to partner on it. That enabled us to get the first version of the app built. Since then we’ve raised three rounds of equity financing, and each one has been very different – our latest round was a $6m Series A round led by Octopus Ventures this summer. Fundraising is always challenging, but incredibly rewarding once completed. It’s been quite a sobering experience being a female-founded startup team – because only 2% of VC funding last year went to female founded startups.
How does OLIO make money?
OLIO generates revenues by charging businesses for the service we provide via our Food Waste Heroes Programme to enable them to have zero edible food waste stores. Businesses are increasingly recognising that it’s no longer acceptable to be throwing away perfectly good food – their customers don’t like it, and their employees don’t like it either.
Is there ever a clash between volunteers helping for free and the OLIO founders want to make money?
Our volunteers understand that OLIO needs to have a sustainable business model, and therefore generate revenues, to be able to continue to exist and have the incredible impact we’re having. So they’ve been some of our biggest supporters as we’ve started to monetise.
Your growth rate has been really impressive. What marketing have you used?
Our Ambassadors have definitely been at the heart of our growth. We’ve also had some amazing bursts of new users whenever we’re featured on television, or in the App Store. Press has been useful for reinforcing the brand and credibility although it doesn’t drive immediate downloads. In terms of paid advertising, Facebook and Google have been most effective.
What are your plans for the future?
We have an unashamedly bold ambition for the future – in 10 years’ time we want a billion people to be using OLIO. When we raised our Series A funding this summer, it enabled us to double the size of our team and so now we’re really accelerating our growth.
Thank you Tessa, your story is so inspiring.
If you would like sign up to OLIO and start sharing recyclable surplus food then please go to their website now to download the app.
The Mayor of London recently announced an allocation of £1 million available to a range of grassroots community projects. Operating in conjunction with UK crowdfunding platform Spacehive and the Greater London Authority, community project leaders can apply for a maximum contribution of up to £50,000 for new not-for-profit projects that serve the wider community. It’s a competitive process, and I can help applicants to succeed. The deadline for applications is September 3.
The Mayor and GLA’s main purposes of the initiative appear to be to:
Crowdsource ideas at a grassroots community level that add to or improve local facilities, maybe through new uses of disused buildings and locations, to inspire City Hall regeneration policy-making.
Show Londoners that their City Hall and elected representatives are listening and responsive in a demonstration of growing transparency and accountability.
The re-purposing of abandoned locations and unused buildings, particularly high street retail units, is a matter of growing national concern. Online shopping, road congestion, scarcity or cost of parking spaces and a recent hike in business rates have all reduced footfall and raised costs at traditional retail outlets.
The #CrowdfundLDN project will crowdsource many ideas that could influence local authority policies on how to respond to the hollowing out of previously vibrant areas within communities, and also empower groups of volunteer citizens to work together to deliver their solutions at a lower project cost than full funding from any local authority’s budget.
In 2017 the initiative also attracted a number of corporate donors who wanted association with the initiative. Backers included renewal energy company Bulb, creative co-working space Second Home, Ladbrokes and B&Q alongside Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Growing a Greener Britain and Veolia.
Here’s the 2018 timeline.
Workshops are currently taking place throughout London to raise awareness and participation levels, and to brief interested parties on the scheme details.
During July and August project leaders will start to build their crowdfunding pitch on the Spacehive platform, identifying necessary skill sets and assembling their team(s) to finalise the pitch, raise the money and then deliver the end project. Completed crowdfunding pitches, including plans on how the project will be delivered and then maintained as a going concern, must be submitted to Spacehive by September 3.
Later in September the projects that meet a required standard of community benefit, validation of local community support, short-term achievability and longer-term viability will go live on Spacehive and start to generate funding.
30 to 40-or-so projects selected to receive a contribution from the Mayor of London’s £1m budget will be announced in October at an event staged in London’s County Hall, headquarters of the GLA and Mayor of London (as in main image in 2017).
Each project will then continue its crowdfunding efforts during November and December to reach their target. The crowdfunding will be on an “All or Nothing basis,” meaning if a project fails to reach the outstanding balance of its overall target the Mayor will keep his money and the project will not go ahead.
Being selected is naturally very positive news to tell potential backers through PR and social media. Projects that fail to receive a Mayor’s contribution can still choose to continue their efforts to raise funds, though of course they will have a tougher job to reach their target.
Benefits for the funding applicants are numerous, and include:
At a community level, participation in the scheme draws together people with a shared focus on involvement in a project for ulterior motives. Firm friendships and alliances between local businesses have been forged in the previous two years of the scheme.
At a personal level, a number of individuals may develop new skills through the experience and interaction of being part of a team, and gain personal confidence through empowerment. All and any of these factors could boost their employment prospects and future personal earning potential.
All successful projects will improve the number and range of London’s community facilities available to the city’s population.
Previous successful projects include building a sustainable food yard, kitchen and event space at Bankside near the Tate Modern to act as a hub for the promotion of sustainable food activity. The project provides education, outreach and advocacy for innovation in sustainable food practices, and incubator space for startups. Affordable access to a professional kitchen as a community resource enables hopeful commercial food and drink suppliers and would-be chefs and restaurant owners to experiment, gain experience and refine skills.
One project completed the external refurbishment of an iconic and much loved local art deco cinema in Hackney. The project also created a second screen allowing for more local events and the sustainable operation of the enterprise as a non-profit community facility.
A south London disused railway space will enjoy a new lease of life as a 900m pedestrian walkway and natural garden area in what was previously a rail yard used for coal wagons. It is a facility comparable to the inspiring and better known elevated walkway examples in New York and Paris. An initial crowdfunding project in 2015 on Spacehive raised money for a feasibility study, now published as a 180-page document. In addition to a contribution from the Mayor of London, Southwark Council also donated £10,000.
Previously abandoned garden allotments in Tolworth, Kingston Upon Thames, were re-purposed as a suburban farming project to teach food-growing skills and create a productive, sustainable source of locally produced food. The designers of the growing space went on to win an award at the prestigious Royal Horticultural Show at Hampton Court with an edible garden.
Details of all 25 projects backed in this initiative by the Mayor of London in 2017, which between them received a total contribution of £400,000, are here.
Spacehive has made a lot of useful information and planning guides available, and also gives details on additional sources of funding in some boroughs. Though if you’d like extra support and insight about using crowdfunding to make your idea for a local community project become a reality then please contact me via [email protected]. There’s no charge for the first meeting or conversation on Skype or the phone, and let’s take it from there. You can also follow me on Twitter, @Cliveref.
Spacehive has made a lot of 
