Changify - Your local change platform

With Changify Shoreditch coming up this Friday 14th - Sunday 16th December in Rockwell House Studio (Fri) and Method's London offices in the Tea Building on Shoreditch High St (Sat and Sun); we're delighted to announce our panel of judges who will give their expert feedback on the projects and pitch videos created by attendees over the weekend. Indy Johar - Co-founder 00:/

Indy is a qualified architect and regeneration consultant with particular experience in socially driven sustainability. He has delivered significant large scale multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder projects from Future Planners [with DEMOS, RICS, English Partnerships, CPRE] to Sustainable Suburbia joint funded by RICS, CABE, BURA and NESTA. He has worked on a series of research projects focusing on sustainable futures; from affordable neighbourhoods, future planners, sustainable suburbia to High Utilization workspaces. Indy previously worked at Penoyre & Prasad Architects, leading, wining and delivering several Local Investment Finance Trust health workspace projects within Public Private Partnership frameworks. A Demos Associate, he has taught at TU Berlin, University of Bath, Architectural Association and University College London. Recently, Indy lectured at Art and Ecology Conference [London], Commission for Architecture and Built Environment, LSE and the Royal Academy.  Indy on Twitter @indy_johar Jim Boulton - Deputy Managing Director, London, Story Worldwide

Jim is Story's Deputy MD in the UK and a Course Director for The Chartered Institute of Marketing, where he runs the Digital Marketing Masterclass. He also curates “Digital Archaeology”, an event that celebrates the golden age of the website and raises the profile of digital archiving. The show has featured as a key part of Internet Week Europe and New York, attracting over 12,000 visitors, gaining international media coverage and support from The British Library, The Library of Congress and Google. In 1996, Jim embarked on a Masters Degree at the Hypermedia Research Centre. Led by the eminent social theorist Doctor Richard Barbrook and the cutting edge interactive design agency Antirom, the course was dubbed the British answer to Negroponte’s Media Lab by The Guardian. In 1998, Jim established Large, an Internet consultancy that delivered benchmark websites for the world’s top brands including the groundbreaking Bang & Olufsen site, referred to as “the most beautiful website in the world” by the Financial Times, and Agent Provocateur, deemed the “sexiest website in the world” by Vogue. In 2007, Large merged with Story Worldwide to create the world’s first post-advertising agency. Jim on Twitter @jim_boulton Chris Downs - Principal, Method

Over the weekend of 14th-16th December, we're going to #Changify Shoreditch, with two days of citizen reporting, rating, data collection and creative problem solving. Sign up now and get set to hack the hood... Hot on the heels of our first local venture - Changify King's Cross on 7th November (details and photos) - we're now heading eastwards and running a bigger scale experience.

Following our Festive Friday early drinks (6-8.30pm at Rockwell House Studio) where you can meet fellow Changifiers and get some inspiration for the weekend ahead, it's action stations as, for one weekend, you turn citizen journalist-cum-detective... On Saturday fulled by tea, coffees and a recap of the day ahead inside the Tea Building, you'll head outside to explore past, present and future Shoreditch with expert guide Peter Berthoud (more nuggets from Peter on Facebook and Twitter), while in turn documenting and sharing issues, inspirations and brands you notice en route, and chalking your ratings on the streets...

Following the Changify walk, there's time review your findings over lunch, and then map the collated data back at base in the lovely Method premises in the Tea Building. What you've found and reported on the walk will form the basis of a real-time index of ideas for changes locally, around which the next step is hatching and crafting solutions... These solutions are crafted into projects, supported by 1-minute pitch videos (from teams or individuals) to get backing on the new Changify platform from the local community, brands, and other supporters. Be the first snap-up a ticket for Changify Shoreditch at the Early Bird rate, and get an invite to our private beta before we go live to everyone - book your ticket now! -- #Changify Shoreditch Fri 14th - Sun 16th December - BOOK HERE. [Early bird rate: £16.55 per ticket; thereafter £23.97, price includes guided walk Sat; lunch & refreshments Sat & Sun]

#Changify Friday [Fri 14th evening only - FREE] BOOK HERE using Promo code: ChangifyFri

Follow Changify on Twitter. Hashtag #Changify and see photos of Changify events.

As D4SC is building the Changify platform to get public and brand backing for local ideas, improvements and projects; people-powered data gathering and rating of things you notice at street level is at the heart of what we're about. Going beyond top-down notions of 'engagement' and talk of 'enabling' people (as if they're currently bereft of motivation, or lack articulate thoughts and a willingness to express them), we're firm believers in developing a framework that surfaces, synchs with and situates real desires and needs. That requires doing stuff collaboratively from day one, shaping experiences and outcomes through the process of marrying data with action, and repeating this often... Our first such outing was on 7th November in King's Cross.

With the Centre for Creative Collaboration #C4CC as our base, the historic and rapidly transforming King's Cross area - that straddles Camden and Islington Council boroughs - became the setting for a night of discovery, data collection and real-time analysis...

After a quickfire summary of the forthcoming Changify platform and toolkit, plus an introduction to earlier innovations in mapping and collecting social data in London pioneered by Charles Booth and his famous Poverty Map of 1898 (collated over 12 years of assiduous data gathering!), 35 people were handed pieces of chalk and armed with these and their charged-up mobile phones set off in two groups on guided tours (with a twist) of the King's Cross area.

During the walks, led by accredited Blue Badge guides, they gained insight into the past and current local context of the neighbourhood. One story revealed how the clean waters of the subterranean River Fleet led to the area becoming a global epicentre of public health care and medical innovation in the late Victorian era, a legacy still tangible in the numerous local hospitals and nearby Wellcome Trust and Collection headquarters.

Other more contemporary stopping points included London's newest street and postcode, King's Boulevard, N1C, where playful public art and restored landmark buildings with a renewed purpose sit accessibly amid what is currently the UK's biggest building site. And Drink Shop & Do, a multi-purpose venue mixing cakes, drinks and dancing with creative classes, art and objects galore exhibited for sale all under one roof.

In turn the groups turned roving citizen-reporters. They photographed and tweeted local issues, inspirations and brands spotted en route, chalking their ratings in situ, and collating data to discuss, map and rate when everyone returned to the venue.

Piles of rubbish, classic street furniture, barbed wire fences, Pret A Manger, McDonald's, and even a location from the Harry Potter films in Kings Cross Railway Station all came under scrutiny. Then the positives and negatives were documented, rated and weighed up afterwards, as were potential solutions and roles for brands to play in delivering them.

As a pilot outing, the event helped lay the ground for our future local events and make concrete some of the needs of the new Changify app and platform. But it also proved that turning a citizen's eye on your locality is in equal measures mind-expanding and exciting, even whilst darker and more conflicting facts are noted.

Life as a brand new startup is a rollercoaster for sure, but done right, much of it should be about developing and testing your idea, and pitching it to the right people. That way you know if you're Whistling Dixie or on the right track. With this in mind, Changify rolled up at two big startupathons in London this autumn... and boy did we learn a lot. First up was the Startup Weekend London Women's Edition on 14-16th September at Google Campus. With two women on our core team, getting a level playing field for women in digital matters a lot. Plus we're already active supporters of networks such as Women 2.0. SheSays and Girl Geeks, so it logically follows... and guys were welcome too :-) At Startup Weekend London, D4SC (with the Changify brand still a far-off twinkle in one team member's eye) was selected from the initial pitches to go forward to the final. Over a weekend of user journey mapping, business planning, market scoping and pitch refining we also met, worked and bonded with some great people - including @Nakkeeran25 and ‏ @Claus1860 - and got some valuable advice from @MailaReeves @jemimah_knight @nickholzherr and many others en route. We were thrilled to get to the finals, but it was the process of taking part that had a lasting impact.

Then, on November 10-11th, Angel Hack descended on London for the first time at Bloomberg's UK offices in Finsbury Square (with support from a huge array of sponsors), and we in turn got a protoype of the forthcoming Changify app in place, and collaborated to craft a pitch that made sense to the judges and 250-strong hackathon attendees.

Here we met @shavindra and @ilyan who joined the D4SC Changify team and helped clarify our vision and approach. Their input, and the feedback we received from the Angel Hack judges - @markpearson @simonw and @simonmenashy - combined to get Design for Social Change's mission to launch Changify off the starting blocks. Massive thanks to all the organisers of both Startup Weekend London Women's Edition and Angel Hack London - two intense weekends at the start of our startup journey very well spent!

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