The AbilityNet Tech4Good Awards are back this year to celebrate a new cohort of people and organisations using tech to make the world a better place.
Since 2011, the Tech4Good Awards have recognised over a hundred winners, including what3words, an app that gives an address to everyone on the planet.
A conversation with what3words kicked off a new series of podcasts featuring previous winners talking about how taking home a Tech4Good Award benefited the company.
AbilityNet’s Mark Walker spoke with Giles Rhys Jones, Chief Marketing Officer, to discuss the story behind the app and how it has been used across the world.
The podcasts are released weekly and feature winners Peek Vision (20 April), Cosmic (27 April) and Digit Music (4 May).
Catch up on the latest episodes here
What’s the story behind what3words?
what3words was born out of a desire to make navigation simpler and more effective. They identified that a street address alone was not accurate enough to locate specific locations such as building entrances and was not available for large rural areas and communities in areas such as Favelas in Brazil. The world was divided into three-by-three-metre squares, and each of these was given a distinct combination of three words.
what3words is used by businesses to improve customer experience and efficiency, by emergency services and NGOs to find and help people in need, and by individuals in their daily lives to make navigation easier, safer, and more efficient.
Find out more about what3words
How did winning a Tech4Good award support what3words?
Giles Rhys Jones highlights three key benefits of entering and winning a Tech4Good Award:
1. Refining your elevator pitch
The Tech4Good Awards offer the opportunity to “focus very tightly on your proposition and how you sell it,” says Jones and “getting your elevator pitch down very tightly, was a really good exercise to go through.”
2. Meeting like-minded people and businesses
By bringing together a cohort of businesses, individuals, charities, and government bodies that are using technology to make the world a better place, it is “a really good way to one meet like-minded people and to chat through start-up life, which can be a bit of a lonely place.”
3. Presenting the product to people who could use it
“What better way to get in front of new innovative companies and large businesses who are trying to do good in the world than to be part of a Tech4Good award show? Because all those organisations could actually use what3words in their own businesses.”
Enter the Tech4Good Awards NOW. The awards are free to enter, and entries are open until 5 May 2023.
Entries are open to anyone, anywhere in the world using tech to make the world a better place, including individuals, businesses, charities, social enterprises, government bodies, and more.
