Bepartofit Hub – past events

Sensedrink in London – 03/04/15 5:30-7:30PM

WAYRA LONDON & MAKE SENSE – FIRST GOOD FRIDAY SENSE DRINK – ONLY ONE OF ITS KIND!

Want to learn more about how technologies can improve the lives of blind people?!?

Come to the next SenseDrink on Fri 3 April 2015 and meet GiveVision – http://www.givevision.net/, Blitab – http://blitab.com/ & Bepartofit, 3 organizations involved in the visual impairment field that will talk about their projects and its impact while sharing some drinks.

Who are MakeSense?

MakeSense is an open project built by a community of people passionate about Social Entrepreneurship, Innovation and the web.

At MakeSense we connect Social Entrepreneurs with individuals ready to take up their challenges.

We organise hold-ups. A hold-up is a creative problem solving workshop to solve specific challenges of social entrepreneurs.

Find a challenge, solve it, celebrate using Make Sense website – www.makesense.org.

More info and rsvp – https://www.facebook.com/events/588534077949953/


Webinar – International Day of Persons with Disabilities – 03/12/14

On the 3rd of December, Bepartofit  participated in the UN’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities. On this occassion we hosted a free webinar with Blitab (people behind first tablet for blind people), Pawel Urbanski (a blind digital innovator, business and life coach, speaker, entrepreneur and even climber and active golfer), and Peter Reed-Forrester (Managing Director at CommunityUK.net, Digital Inclusion expert and invited member of the Government’s Digital Leaders Program). The topic was “Digital Innovation Accessible To All”. Video, captions, audio and Word transcript from this webinar will be available soon.

We plan to run regular webinars, record them and share online. These videos will be captioned, transcribed and hopefully available in sign language.

Please email us at [email protected] if you’d like to recommend a topic or an interesting content i.e. video, ted talk, article or audio material that you’d like to share with our community in an accessible way.


UnLtd ‘Living it Festival’ at Google Campus in London – Saturday 17th May 2014 at 4.00PM

Bepartofit is going to run a workshop at Google Campus during UnLtd’s Living It Festival! 

Theme: Inclusion and Social Entrepreneurship.

This workshop is for everyone who wants to learn what peer-to-peer inclusion and Social Entrepreneurship can do for potential and existing Social Entrepreneurs including those with visual and hearing impairments.Bepartofit is now developing a community-powered online educational programme that will be co-designed, customized and highly accessible and we are going to imagine a few scenarios together with the workshop participants.The workshop will be adapted to meet the needs of different target audiences and it will take an experiential, playful and participative approach.

We will use innovative and inclusive game techniques called ‘Gamestorming’ and ‘Bodystorming’ to ensure that everyone feels included regardless disability or physical impairment.

 Our main objectives are:

– to promote Inclusion and Social Entrepreneurship

– to empower people by being accessible and resourceful

– to raise awareness about disability and different skills that blind, partially sighted and/or deaf people and hard of hearing people have

– to explore participants’ views on using Bepartofit services and the new online feature in particular

– to create networking and peer-to-peer opportunities.

“UnLtd are inviting you and your colleagues, friends and family to the biggest ever festival for young social entrepreneurs and those who support this work. We are collectively taking over Google Campus in London – all three floors of it! The Living It Festival is a two-day extravaganza of a colourful range of activities. Friday is focused on our partners and UnLtd sharing our knowledge and experience. For Saturday expect practical sessions on a wide range of subjects from a range of people and organisations. Learn about how to start with a great idea, how to pursue your passion, how to make money AND make a difference. Find out about great stories by experienced social entrepreneurs, what our funders and corporate partners can share with you, hear from great artists and much much more.

And did we mention lots of fun?

We aim to bring together and showcase knowledge, support and expertise from our partners and Award Winners, in addition to celebrating, promoting and showcasing the work of young social entrepreneurs and our partners. Bring your friends, your colleagues, your teams, your dates, your dog and the person next to you on the tube – and anyone who might benefit from being inspired, enlightened and being nudged off the fence.

Join the movement, take part and shape the future we want! See you in May.”


 The InnoPitch 2014 Finalist! – September 10, 2014

We are so WOWed! Bepartofit is one of the 12 finalists of the InnoPitch (European Young Innovator of the Year 2014) contest! We are going to be mentored by Carlos Espinal from Seedcamp and won free access to Unconvention 2014! Going to Brussels then!;-)

Check out Unconvention 2014 here: http://unconvention.info.


Hackathon success in Paris! – April 1, 2014
 
Hello amis! Hello friends!

Have you ever taken part in a 24h hackathon?!

If yes (or even if no), then congratulate us since Bepartofit team scored high points during Paris-based La Nuit Du Numerique event. The 24 hour hackathon was part of the conference hosted by CRI Paris – Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity and Paris Descartes University in partnership with Microsoft, Cisco, HP and Sense School to name just a few.

Scientists, designers, marketers, got 24 hours to solve tech challenges of the four social entrepreneurs!

It was all about imagining a solution and prototyping it in…24 hours only!

There were 4 challenges in total:

  • Create a manual to allow anyone to analyze water composition for PUBLIC LAB;
  • Create attractive P2P interactions for Kawaa’s website;
  • Create a new experience on Zéro Gâchis‘ website to engage users;
  • Or create an accessible peer-to-peer user experience for everyone including deaf and/or hard of hearing and blind and/or visually impaired Users for Bepartofit.

The whole idea behind the hackfest was mainly created by Make Sense and it was all very creative and based on innovation and games so that the process was exciting, engaging and very playful.

All the teams were amazing but Zéro Gâchis and Bepartofit got to the top.

Both of the projects scored 1st place equal in public voting and judges gave us a high second place and a surprise 1st place prizes so we actually felt like we’ve won together with Zéro Gâchis! What an honour! We really didn’t expect that and we’d love to thank CRI, Make Sense and Sense School, and most importantly our brave team: Anaelle Camarda, Josse Blais, Omar So, Moussab Tatfi, Etienne and Adrian!

We met so many super hackers and friendly academics that we started learning French!;-)

So thank you once again and hopefully see you soon! We’ll be now busy working on implementing the solution!

Merci!


BEPARTOFIT + MKS ROOM – March 20, 2014

Bepartofit in collaboration with MKS Room – connecting music, live radio and talk show – organized their very first inclusion event in London. We are delighted that so many people came and engaged in the debate with our guests. Unfortunately, our special guest speaker – Caroline Casey from Kanchi – needed to cancel last minute due to a very tight schedule and same day trip to India. We hope however that she will be able to join our next event on how to better support each other and create more inclusion-based opportunities.

There is a podcast available. Please click here to go to the podcast by clicking on the link http://music.makesense.org/post/81478159864/bepartofit-in-collaboration-with-mks-room.

A full pdf transcript of the podcast is available here.

Theme: Inclusion.

Our special guests:

  • Deaf Rave: w/Dj Troi Chinaman Lee, Dj Inigo and MC Geezer
  • SignVideo: James Wengraf Townsend – Head of Sales team for Deaf Community
  • Dans Le Noir: Dominique Raclin – General Manager
  • Inclusion and Public Health Researchers: Marc Sarazin from the University of Oxford
  • Muhammad Javed from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
  • Clowns Without Borders South Africa: Jamie McLaren Lachman – Founder

MKS Room are recorded events blending live performance and talks connecting art and social entrepreneurship. By using music and culture, our mission is to promote social business and make it accessible to everyone.These events are organized everywhere in the world by the MakeSense community.


MAKESENSE.ORG & BEPARTOFIT.ORG.UK SOCIAL INNOVATION HOLD-UP! – January 26, 2014

We are still full of excitement after yesterday’s MakeSense hold-up at The London School of Economics and Political Science – LSE! We now have plenty of work to prepare the crowd-funding campaign for our high impact inclusion events! Big kudos to everyone and especially to MakeSense, UnLtd and Sadaqat Ali and Saduf Naqvi from Lingoing.com for supporting us and being part of it!

* Lingoing.com acts to “remove the barriers to language isolation and poverty to support individuals, families and communities to feel visible, valued, connected and heard.”

Their mission is to “unite and connect a global community of language professionals and clients via an interactive online platform that is transparent, useful and simple-to-use.”


 European Commission for Social Entrepreneurs! “HAVE YOUR SAY” – January 19, 2014
On the 16 and 17 January 2014, Bepartofit was helping MakeSense.org during the “Have Your Say” event hosted by European Commission, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the City of Strasbourg.

It was a very informative, inclusive and collaborative event during which participants from all over Europe could debate, exchange ideas, network, learn from each other and present their achievements.

Moreover, for the first time The European Network for Corporate Social Responsibility and Disability organized a competition to promote social entrepreneurship, social investment and disability. The 1st European Award for Social Entrepreneurship and Disability went to Career Moves from Austria. Its founder, Gregor Demblin, was elecetd to the Ashoka Fellowship in 2013.

Among those who were exhibiting their social enterpises we met Dialogue in The Dark. We were taken on a tour guided by a blind person who helped us better understand what an efficient communication is about.

We were also delighted to co-facilitate the MakeSense hold-up for the Portugal-based network Eslider which connects social enterpises with 3rd sector. The participants that took part in the workshop worked on a challenge to help Eslider create more engaged community of changemakers.

Below are some of the very important messages that EU Commisson shared with us:

“Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Michel Barnier said: The great battle today is for growth and employment. I am convinced that there is no lasting economic performance without social cohesion. The social economy is part and parcel of the new growth model which we are creating, which is more inclusive and greener. By virtue of their vocation, social enterprises keep their ear to the ground and are in tune with social or environmental realities. They are innovative, they are dynamic and they create jobs. We have to do everything we can to create an ecosystem that encourages them to develop further. That is the objective of the Strasbourg conference.”

European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani, Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, said:Social businesses help the EU create a highly competitive social market economy and are engines for sustainable growth. During the crisis they proved their worth by showing strong resilience. We now need them more than ever for their job creating ability.”

Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, László Andor said: “Social enterprises provide hundreds of successful examples how Europe can improve its business model, with more focus on improving people’s well-being and less on maximising financial gain. The social economy can create quality jobs even in difficult economic circumstances and clearly deserves EU support to grow and spread.”

President of the European Economic and Social Committee, Henri Malosse said: “Europe can no longer permit itself to miss the target. Its core business is – should be – active solidarity and strong common policies, namely in the fields of industry, energy and entrepreneurship, especially social entrepreneurship”.

More information here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-11_en.htm


Nacue Tata Social Enterprise Conference – December 7, 2013
 
We were part of today’s Nacue Tata Social Enterprise Conference here in London. It was super energizing to meet awesome and inspiring people and hang out with MakeSense! We also joined a great #MKSRoom session with Vincent from MakeSense and we played some Signmark‘s rap! We also discussed a new project with MakeSense and will tell you about it soon! What a beautiful day;-)

Inspiring visit at RNIB Scotland and employability awards! – December 3, 2013

Employability awards, great energy and inspiring people at the Royal National Institute of Blind People in Scotland! It was amazing to be part of it! Thank you for having us!

High impact Award for Bepartofit! – November 30, 2013

Bepartofit won an award from the Global Entrepreneurship Week UK😉 We are the host of the high impact event during GEWUK 2013!

MakeSense UK BOOM hold-up in Warwick! – November 30, 2013
Bepartofit is having its MakeSense UK BOOM hold-up in Warwick! Excited about the outcome!

Bepartofit featured in today’s Guardian! – November 21, 2013


20 November: Westminster HUB, MakeSense, Seable and Meetmeals! – November 20, 2013

Our first event went great and we are happy about making new connections and learning about our project improvements! We hosted two amazing social enterprises:

1. Seable (UK) – a SE that offers great leisure activities for people with additional needs.

2. Meetmeals (Spain) – a SE that helps people organize socio-gastronomic meetings with a nice blend of social engagement and great food!

The MakeSense mini hold-up generated interesting insights and we are looking forward to seeing these insights alive! Next step TATA SEC and meeting with Vincent from MakeSense MKS Rooms! We have a great idea for collaboration and inclusion project!