Happy Friday readers!

This week's newsletter is guest-edited by Ocean Bottle. 

By 2040, ocean plastic is expected to quadruple. Our mission is to bring people together to turn the tide on ocean plastic. We do that with the help of an award-winning reusable bottle that turns every refill into a moment of positive activism, making it easy to protect the ocean through collective action. 

With the sale of every Ocean Bottle, we fund the collection of 1000 ocean-bound plastic bottles in places where plastic pollution is worst. Locals in coastal communities exchange plastic for things they need like money, tuition, healthcare, and access to microfinance. 

But this is about more than just a bottle, it’s about driving behavioural change at scale. Via our app, we leverage technology to enable people to continue to make an impact after purchase, with more plastic collection each time they use their reusable Ocean Bottle or any reusable item with an Ocean Bottle NFC sticker. 

Through our app, the Ocean Bottle community can:

• Find the nearest refill stations

• Collect more ocean-bound plastic every time they refill

• Track how much plastic they have saved and unlock rewards

• Join in with local and global challenges to be part of a collaborative community for the greater good

We’re rewarding individuals for positive everyday behaviour changes like getting a coffee or going to the gym. After all, we don’t need a handful of people doing sustainability perfectly, we need millions doing something.

In this newsletter, we’re exploring some of the most exciting innovations being used to tackle plastic waste. 

Have a great weekend, 

Chloe

#Turning the tap off plastic waste 🐬

🌊 Surfers Against Sewage started off as a grassroots movement, but has grown into one of the UK’s most active and successful environmental charities. They work at a local level, inspiring activism within communities to protect our blue planet.

🌎 A Plastic Planet is another organisation to look out for when it comes to trailblazers in the movement, and are great resource to learn about plastic pollution. Everything they do supports their single goal: ‘To ignite and inspire the world to turn off the plastic tap’.

🍌 Banana Leaf technology is potentially a great replacement for plastic wraps, and new technologies are enhancing banana leaves physical properties to make them a viable biodegradable material alternative to both plastic and paper. Read more about the development here.

🤖 Turning the tap off plastic pollution directly is the river robot floating in the middle of the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam. A 24-meter-long steel machine that can extract up to 50,000kgs of waste per day, as floating waste is guided towards its opening by a long barrier. Learn more about this robotic development here. 

💡 Innovation is essential for a future with near-zero plastic pollution and technology plays a key role here. Read more about it in this article by PEW Trust, who highlight just some of the technological innovations required to beat plastic pollution. This includes improved technology to reduce sorting losses, handle higher levels of contamination, or create higher-quality output affordably, particularly for food-grade plastic.

🦵 We recently launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for our latest product, the Big Ocean Bottle, and we are excited to bring this project to life early next year. You can keep up to date by signing up to our newsletter via oceanbottle.co.

🧼 Lush have introduced a Global Anti-Social Media Policy - a big title for a big statement. The brand is pledging to stop posting on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and Snapchat. 

🌐 This is an older piece from when Tim Berners-Lee sold the source code for the world wide web as an NFT,  but it has some really interesting perspectives on the relationship between NFTs, ownership, compensation and art. 

🏛Barbados is working with metaverse companies to establish a digital embassy in the Metaverse. The thinking behind the move is to use technology diplomacy to extend to cultural diplomacy. Will this add legitimacy to the metaverse?

🔗 The right to be forgotten from the internet is an interesting, and relatively new concept. ‘Rest of world’ looks into how this relates to a young Argentinian and her legal fight to forget a decade old celebrity scandal. 

🌈 A Stonewall report from 2018 found that 1 in 7 LGBTQ+ individuals avoided seeking healthcare for fear of the discrimination they may face. LVNDR are on a mission to improve accessibility to information and services in this space. Hear from the co-founder, Josh Armistead, here.

🌏 How can Wikipedia fight climate denial on their site, without undermining one of their core principles of self-governance? The BBC explores this question in this article and podcast. 

The Tech for Good Newsboard 📍

• Being a tech for good + profitable company can be a difficult sell. This blog from Olio explains how they went about creating a business model and why being a profitable company helps scale their impact. 

• We love open source, so we were excited when we found this page from Notion, sharing templates from some of the most successful brands, including Netlfix, Headspace and LinkedIn.

• Calling all digital health startups. You may be interested in this collection of resources from the UK government on how to evaluate your products. 

• Rolling invitation for anyone interested in joining our Slack community. Connect with more than 330+ peers passionate about tech for good.

Featured funding opportunity 💰

Applications for BGV’s Spring 2022 programme are now open!

Tech for good startups have a unique opportunity to provide products + services that make sense in a world prioritising social and environmental value.

With a decade of experience and 18 programmes behind us, BGV is in the perfect position to help you build and scale a successful tech for good venture. 

Apply today for your chance to receive not only £30k in funding, but also support and mentorship from the people who pioneered tech for good. 

Check out these top tips before submitting your application. 

#Opportunities and Funding

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

• Applications for the Community Ideas Fund from Creative Dundee are open. Apply by 28th December for your chance to pitch your idea and win £2,500. Find out more about the fund here. 

• The Social Science Research Council is looking for applicants for its first Just Tech Fellowship. Find out more here and apply by 2nd January 2022.

• PUBLIC has teamed up with Amazon Web Services to launch its first UK healthcare accelerator programme to help mentor digital health start-ups solving the healthcare industry’s biggest challenges. Apply by 5th December here.

• Applications for the Year Here Social Innovation Fellowship 2022 are open.. Apply by 5th December.

• Applications for ‘DEEPSEA - The startup ecosystem accelerator,’ are now open.. Apply by 3rd December.

What’s going on? 📅

• Bethnal Green Ventures and The Resolution Foundation are bringing the WorkerTech community in Manchester together to explore how we might shape a faired future of work for all. The event will be held online on 7th December. Sign up here. 

• Call for applications for Bethnal Green Ventures’ Tech for Good programme are open! Sign up for one of the virtual Q&A events here.

• You can also join BGV in-person on 13th December for this Q&A and networking event. Find out more and sign up here.

• Warwick Enterprise are hosting a slightly Christmas themed in-depth discussion and workshop on the trends and limits of AI, augmented realities, NFTs and what the future of digitalisation may mean for you and your business. Find out more and register 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.

• Ocean Bottle is hiring for an Associate Product Manager. ​​This is an excellent opportunity for a business / digital product professional to join a fast-growing startup with the potential to progress quickly

• Piclo has a range of vacancies in Delivery, Engineering and Operations. Check out all the opportunities here. 

• GoodGym is looking for a Marketing and Communications Manager to work with their Growth and Partnerships team. You will be responsible for national awareness and PR, local campaigns and targeting, and more. Apply by 29th November.

• Chatterbox is looking for a Head of B2B Marketing to join their team and take responsibility for conveying their message to businesses. Find out more and apply by 1st December.

• Spoke is hiring a Head of Growth to help them maximise positive social impact. Find out more and apply here.

• CAST is looking for a Full Stack Software Designer to play a critical role in driving social sector change, by building digital tools and infrastructure that helps charities to better use digital to tackle social issues. Apply by 12th March.

• Big Lemon is looking for a Frontend Developer to join a fully remote company on a mission to change people’s lives with tech. Apply by 12th March.

• Nesta is hiring a Lead Product Designer for their Centre for Collective Intelligence Design. The Centre helps create new ways for communities to use technology to to act on the problems that matter to them. Apply by 29th November. 

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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