TechHub Tuesday Demo Night

Tech Against Terrorism was pleased to take part in #TechHubTuesday Demo Night, on February 6. The event was held at Google Campus, in Shoreditch.

The principle is simple – “TechHub Demo Night isn’t about pitching for funds, it’s an opportunity to show the community what you’re working on, get some feedback, and see what others are toiling on”.

Coinciding with the Women’s suffrage centenary, this night focused on showcasing startups that focused on democracy, politics, and campaigning. In a slightly unusual twist, presenters were only allowed three minutes to present their product, and then an additional three minutes for Q&A. As such, demonstrations had to be as succinct as possible. Through a live-audience interaction system named Slido, audiences were able to vote on aspects of the demo such as “I like the idea” and “I’d love to get involved”.

Joining Tech Against Terrorism in taking to the stage to demo their products were:

• Alice  -  a network built on the Ethereum blockchain that brings together organisations, donors, grant-makers and impact investors to identity effective social projects
• Changer - allowing people to donate money to the homeless through a QPR code, which could then be used to purchase food and items at approved locations
• Faith Circle – the first faith-orientated social network with inbuilt events and concert bookings, and aims to digitise donations for people of faith around the world.
• Organise - the UK’s workplace campaigning site, creating networks of people in companies across the UK, who can join together.
• React - a tool to revolutionise public opinion and opinion polling.
• Swap My Vote - a website that pairs voters in different constituencies, who can then vote for each other’s preferred party in a seat where it can count a seat.
• What Do They Know - a Freedom of Information toolkit that provides extra help with requests, and is designed to provide extra functionality for journalists and other people who use FOI in their jobs.

It was great to see the other social impact startups demonstrate their products. Project Director, Adam Hadley, took to the stage in 5^th position and demoed the Knowledge Sharing Platform (KSP - launched at the UN last December) to the audience. The KSP is a collection of interactive tools and resources designed to support the operational needs of smaller tech companies, and to act as a ‘one stop shop” for companies to access practical resources to support their needs to protect their platform from exploitation. The demonstration was well received, and Slido indicated 76% for “I like the idea” and 16% for “I’d love to get involved”.

We will be holding our first London-based workshop of 2018, again in collaboration with TechHub, on Thursday February 15. You can register here.  Thank you to TechHub London and Google Campus for hosting us at the Demo Night, and we look forward to our workshop at TechHub on 15th February (registration).