The Community Foundation has announced a new approach to its fifth round of Techies in Residence, a programme which matches local charities and social enterprises with digital technology partners.
Set to launch later this week, the programme has enabled over 25 groups since its inception and is focused on creating powerful change within communities through digital technology.
Based on its work so far, the Foundation believes that digital technology holds huge potential to help the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector develop new innovative solutions to address challenges and issues.
It believes this challenge has become even more evident in light of Covid-19’s outbreak with many organisations grappling with the shift to digital working – and how best to respond to it.
This year’s Techies in Residence will have a two phased approach, with an initial set of rolling ‘Online Design Hop’ events planned for 23 July, and 6 and 20 August.
Following participation in one of these online sessions, those who feel they have a project ready to take forward with a digital technology partner, can then apply for the Techies in Residence programme which will run from 4 August - 10 September.
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The Design Hops will focus on the ‘co-design’ element of the programme and enable participants to explore some of the challenges they face as an organisation. From these, participants can then decide to take their worked-up idea forward to the delivery stage working with a digital technology partner.
Funded by Comic Relief, six groups completed the programme last year and competed for a share of a £25,000 seed fund to progress their prototype to the next stage.
PPR (Participation & the Practice of Rights), one of the successful groups was awarded £5,000 to develop their ‘Housing Rights Watch” app.
The app allows members of the public to directly apply to the Housing Executive Chief Executive for official homeless status, utilising their formal complaints process and has been developed in response to an increasing volume of homeless people who are without official Full Duty Applicant Status.
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Marissa Mc Mahon, an organiser with human rights organisation PPR, said: “We found the programme really beneficial, and it has really helped us improve the support we provide. Since launching the app we have been able to support more homeless people who were denied official homeless status until we intervened.
“They are the tip of the iceberg. Many more homeless people have no support at all and will spend weeks, months and years in hostels waiting for recognition. In the meantime, Housing Rights Watch will be rolling out in hostels providing support to homeless people to claim their rights.”
Paul Braithwaite, Head of Innovation and Voice at the Community Foundation, added: “This year the Design Hops are the first step, or ‘hop’, into exploring the role of digital in charitable services. By demystifying technology and design, and placing the focus on people not tech, this free workshop and follow-up support will help those interested to start their digital journey on the right foot.”
Application for the scheme will are now open and will close on 15 July 2020. For further information on Techies In Residence visit www.communityfoundationni.org or contact the Community Foundation paul.braithwaite@communityfoundationni.org
