20 October 2023. It has been a year since WBI received the Community Innovation Award from The News. We are thrilled to revisit this occasion at the Portsmouth’s Innovation Awards 2022.
Our wonderful community colleagues and us made morning headlines in The News on 13 October 2022 as winners of the Portsmouth’s Innovation Awards. We were joined by innovative awardees from the fields of maritime, manufacturing, data science, environment, education and health and others.
The Innovation Awards was founded by Portsmouth’s leading newspaper, The News, to celebrate innovation across the South Coast and encourage business growth, particularly in the start-up sector.
The Community Innovation Award, sponsored by START-UP Disruptors, asked: How can businesses innovatively make a social change to improve the wellbeing of their community?
“StartUp Disruptors is on a mission to change accessibility to business for minorities and women and aid social mobility in the U.K. this includes providing support; learning; signposting and advocacy to networks and funding.” – Becky Lodge, Founding Director, StartUp Disruptors
We demonstrated our unique model of pilot funding and commitment to public service. We help get grassroots projects off the ground. Through the consultancy work we do related to the goals of UN SDG 8 with our business clients, we are able to provide bridge funding to key social projects centred on the most vulnerable in our community.
One of our key projects is the Employment Support Workshop for Migrants, now running its 6th edition. Our participants are highly skilled and resilient, and we are honoured to be a part of their journey to employment in the UK.
One talented software engineer joined us at the Innovation Awards. Formerly enrolled in our Employment Support for Migrants Programme, he now works at xDesign as QA Engineer.
Since last year, we have poured much of our service to address issues facing our community most urgently. From food provision to action against health inequalities, we are committed to meeting the social mission of our community interest company to foster a responsible economy from the ground up.
What does Innovation mean to us, a year later?
Innovation for us is making a difference in people’s lives by working on new ideas for a responsible economy. It means to continue working on our vision of inclusive and sustainable growth and decent work for all.
We thank START-UP Disruptors for sponsoring the Community Innovation Award and for being our strong supporter. And we look forward to continuing our community service work!
