Happy Friday readers!

What the 2021 British summer time lacked in heatwaves and opportunities for sunbathing, it made up for in abundance of music festivals. Concerts, club nights and outdoor festivals came back as some of the first in-person events since March 2020. 

During the pandemic, music played an important role in helping people cope with isolation and inspire hope. 

A huge amount of research and funding has gone into exploring how music and other creative arts can help in a clinical setting. For example, Breathe Arts Research is an organisation which combines creative approaches with clinical research to design and deliver programmes to improve health and well-being. They have delivered programmes in dancing, music, visual arts, poetry and magic, to hospitals like Guy’s & St Thomas’.

In today’s newsletter I explore how tech for good and music can come together to have a positive impact on people and planet. The examples are varied - from apps leaning on the benefits of music and mental health to organisations hoping to improve accessibility in the music industry. 

Hope you enjoy and as always, have a great weekend.

Liv
 

#Music to my ears 🎧

🧘 We already know that music can have a tremendous impact on mental health. Spoke have applied this knowledge and created a mindfulness app with some of the UK’s best music talent. 

🩺 MediMusic is a promising health tech startup which has created an app which creates personalised playlists to reduce anxiety and pain in patients, and help those with dementia. 

🌳 Justdiggit combine restoration with technology and communication in an attempt to regreen Africa. Their Stream to Regreen partnership with Don Diablo and Ty Dolla $ign, allows you to contribute to their mission by streaming music. 

🎤 The founder of Rap Fame - which helps you record, promote and share music, describes the platform as tech for good. They are keen to make recording music accessible to everyone, and emphasise the benefits of music for escapism and story-telling. 

🤳 TikTok for good wants to help organisations grow their audiences and amplify their missions. They’ve recently partnered with Youth Music NextGen Fund, to help young creatives have the opportunity to change their life through music. 

🌍 The ClimateMusic Project brings together artists who are using their platforms to talk about climate change and “Play for the Planet.” And Music x Green collates and shares the organisations who are working to make the music industry greener. 

💰 The Techstars Music Accelerator invests in founders who use technology to solve the biggest challenges in the music industry, innovate the future of music, and support the cultures surrounding it. 
 

News in tech for good:

📣 The People’s Declaration demands for technology that serves us and calls for an end to Big Tech’s destructive business model. It is a response to the Digital Services Act and definitely worth a read.

🧑‍⚖  Legal startups in the UK are growing at an incredible rate. Maddyness explores eight that are having a big impact. 

🌍  Dama Sathianathan discusses how technology can help achieve a NetZero future in this blog. And if you fancy a deep dive into impact investing, here’s a longread on the topic. 

💡 IKEA is making a name for itself as a clean energy provider, by launching a clean energy subscription service in Sweden, and offering solar panels to customers in 11 markets.

💸 The TL;DR from Climate Tech VC this week is that “climate is heating up, more traditional investors are participating, and there are more cross-sector opportunities than ever before.” Check out the whole story here.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Tech for good receives a boost in Scotland with this partnership between Civtech - the Scottish Government's tech accelerator, and South of Scotland Enterprise. 

✨ Black Seed VC is hoping to be the bridge between the tech industry and the UK’s black community and help tackle the systemic funding problem. Find out more here.

🇨🇳 China’s largest LGBTQI dating app has managed to grow and survive, by focusing on HIV prevention and sexual health, and building out a pharmacy function. Read the full story here.

🌿 ​​This spring, Pymwymic launched the Healthy Food Systems Impact Fund II, a VC fund for companies working on innovative technologies that have the potential to transform our food system. They just made their first investment in Biome Makers, a provider of high-tech soil biology analysis.  

The Tech for Good Newsboard 📍

• This Twitter thread provides some really useful resources on how you can make your social media more accessible and improve the quality of your image descriptions. 

• Not all career trajectories are linear or simple. This is a really interesting piece about what being a “boomerang” employee means, and how to establish it’s the right move for you. 

• Rolling invitation for anyone interested in joining our Slack community. Connect with more than 300+ peers passionate about tech for good.

   

#Opportunities and Funding

If you have a funding challenge, grant opening, speaking gig or another opportunity that you want to share - let us know!

• Newspeak House is looking for socially-minded mid-career technologists to join as Fellows. This is an opportunity to become part of a community of practitioners working on systemic change across civil society and the public sector in the UK.  Find out more here.

• FORWARD is a 6 month accelerator programme, based in the UK, for high-growth startups. Apply here for the January 2022 cohort.

• Applications for the Startup Summit Competition are now open. Apply by 15th September for your chance to win a place on the programme, and a massive business support package worth more than £60,000.

• The French Chamber of Great Britain has announced that the Franco-British Business Awards are open. There are 5 categories: Community Impact, Franco-British Collaboration, Net Zero Champion, Tech Launch & Wellbeing in Crisis. Apply here by 20th September.

• The William Sutton Prize for Social Innovation 2021 Theme is “A Home for All.” The call is for innovative ideas tackling homelessness and addressing temporary accommodation needs, creative solutions for housing an ageing population and for tech supporting sustainable tenancies. Apply by 6th October for your chance to win up to £20,000.

• The 4Revs Innovation Challenge 2021 aims to help humanity solve survival challenges in one generation (2020-2050). Open call for proposals until 8th September - apply here.

What’s going on? 📅

• Mozilla recently held a virtual panel on Voice Concerns: The Need For Diversity In Voice AI Datasets. Watch the recording here.

• Join Bethnal Green Ventures on the 7th September for their Spring 2021 Showcase event. There will be lightning pitches and a panel discussion on angel investing. Register for free here.

• Join us for our LDN Tech Week 21 Tech for Good Community Hangout on 20th September, and connect with others in the growing tech for good ecosystem.

• And join the LDN Tech Week 21 WorkerTech Community Hangout on 22nd September to explore what a fair future of fair work could look like.

• Join the Ada Lovelace Institute on 7th September for the launch of a new research report on participatory data stewardship. Find out more here.

• You have until 8th September to register for the REWIRE: 21-Day Ally Challenge. This 6-week mini course encourages you to reflect and build on your allyship capabilities. Register here.

• The Pitch Sessions: ​​ An opportunity for actively raising women and underrepresented startup founders to pitch interested investors with capital to deploy. The next session is on 9th September, but they happen regularly. Find out more here.

• London Tech Week is nearly upon us. Check out all the sessions and register for free here.

Working in tech for good 💼

We’ve trimmed the job section to new arrivals and featured ads only. For the full list head to our website.

• Organise is hiring a Campaign Coach to work with their members to run and win their workplace campaigns. Apply by 13th September.

• The Numnun Fund is looking for an Organisational Associate and an Operations Director. Deadline for both roles is 6th September. 

• 7Graus is looking for a DevOps Infrastructure Engineer to join their team in Portugal. Apply by 30th October.

• Carbon Co-op is looking for a Software Engineer to work on their energy systems projects in the area of smart energy/home. Apply by 3rd September.

• CitizenLab is looking for a Business Development Manager to lead their expansion in France. Apply by 15th September.

• Women Win is looking for a Junior Salesforce Administrator to join their team. Apply by 8th September.

• Simprints is looking for a Technical Project Manager to oversee the delivery of robust solutions. Apply by 20th December.

If you have an opening or know of a job opportunity to do with tech for good, please head to our website and we can look into adding it to the jobs board.

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