I started with Young Rewired State and Rewired State, that worked with young people and developers on projects and programmes for social and public good. I will continue with more.
I was watching the beginning of the latest series of Big Little Lies. In it a young teen explains to her Mum why she doesn’t want to go to college: she wants to join a start up that is a for-profit organisation providing accommodation for the homeless.
Obviously this was an effort to create a scenario that showcases the millennial snowflake generation set of ideals against the traditional. I found my 47 year old self on the side of the teenager, and so the cognitive dissonance begins.
In my lifetime I have done two important things: 1. I had two daughters and raised them with awareness and 2. I set up a not-for-profit organisation: Young Rewired State in 2007, aimed at bringing together the naturally talented young programmers and engineers who were brilliant but failing at school and failing exams, with few work or learning options and no community. The second failed in 2016, a victim of its own success and lack of sustainable business model/scale which is a total personal failure as I should have listened and learned (in some instances) to those who had slightly different values to myself, but who could have kept this important work alive.
When my darling nephew died in 2017 at age 19 and broke the world, my passing interest in mental health became far more than that, it became my lifeline. Although he did take his own life, there is scant evidence that there were mental health problems in advance of this act, it is all too sadly likely that this was a rash drunken decision — but we will never know.
However, the groups in which I sought and found comfort opened my eyes to a world of crisis especially with our young people and their mental health. Too many young people, google the stats it will shock you, and changes for the worst on a month by month basis. A story that broke my heart even more was from a mother in a group I had been a part of for a few months after my nephew died, who joined us when her 16 year old son got up from the family sofa, made a cup of tea for his parents and siblings, went back into the kitchen to get his own cup, walked into the garden and hung himself. No sign, rhyme or reason.
For several years, even before my nephew took his life, I had been working on an idea for a ‘spa for teens’ based on my interest in the 97ers generation. This rapidly became an idea for a cool members club for kids aged 16–24 where every person they came in touch with in the club including baristas and security had mental health training, but we also ran fun stuff and events that helped address all of the challenges facing them. With parental sessions early in the day to help scared grown ups.
I have the business plan and the breakdown of what it will take but my one thing was: it cannot fail like Young Rewired State. This is even more important IT HAS TO HAVE a sustainable business model. I cannot swoon into my liberal snowflake brain and make this a not-for-profit that relies wholly on donations and has no (slightly unethical in my mind) business model. This has to speak to the rich kids and their money in order to meet some of the needs of those who cannot pay.
And so I have been paralysed, for years now. I want to do this, I know what is needed. I know there is a business model here that will make it self sustaining and bring rewards for investors. But I can’t take the first step as my cognitive dissonance is so massive I can’t even begin to take the necessary next steps… but I KNOW we need this and I know this will save lives.
What would you do?
This has been a long time coming. Platforms have utilised the easiest business model they could and closed their eyes and crossed their fingers that it would be too annoying, too complicated or too late by the time people started wanting to take control of their own data. That business model being that platforms make money by selling your data to organisations public and private for marketing/advertising purposes.
In Facebook’s case they use what they know about you through your data to offer targeted marketing, whilst they retain the deep data knowledge, a pyramid of access, but it still the same model. It is old fashioned but it works. (I know that Cambridge Analytica take this data and do monstrous things with it, but I am talking specifically of the source: the platform).
The irony that such ‘disruptive and innovative’ social platforms that purport to drive the future of the digital revolution are actually just old stuff dressed up in fairly shouty and shiny new clothes is easily lost.
For years I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop with regards to people wanting ownership over their own data, so that they can *choose* when to share what information with whom and in exchange for what.
I thought this moment would come with health information. In the UK certainly, the NHS struggles with communication between surgery, hospital, clinic and other medical establishments, meaning that whoever is treating you never has the whole picture. It is a relatively simple solution, that I know doctors and surgeons across the land would love to happen, and that is for every patient to own their own records, keeping them under digital lock and key and sharing that information with the relevant medical practitioners at the right time. Much less frustrating all around.
Of course once this information is held and controlled by the individual, the smarter developers, researchers and platform owners would then have to come to you and ask for access, you can then choose to give access to all, some or none of your data — and for what in return. I believed this would be the tipping point and people would then start collecting their data from everywhere and so the tide would turn.
However it was not to be. Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have managed to scare the bejesus out of everyone — leading to a mass exodus, kind of, and a lot of finger pointing and noise, but not very much substance.
Does this fundamentally break the trust between people and social platforms? It has certainly rocked it to the core and I am not sure that Mark Zuckerberg has gone far enough to reassure or to reboot that relationship. But neither does just leaving Facebook solve anything — unless of course you were just fed up of it anyway, but leaving in fear worries me.
It would be good if we could use this opportunity to persuade the social platforms to change their business model. To be grateful that they have got away with it for so long, they must have known this day would come.
Social platforms should give everyone their own data, they should not have it — it should be held in a digital account that a person would own and manage as they would their bank account, (or personal health records if we had got that far yet!).
New platform business models should be built around that premise, making it simple and unerringly transparent for people to share or trade their data.
We all know that there is a multi billion — if not trillion — dollar market in worldwide data trade, if you want to get geeky on this look up the Annual Revenue Per User (ARPU) figures. In 2017 this just tipped over the $5 mark for Facebook alone and it was growing at an increase of 26% in that year, with users in Canada and the US having an ARPU of $21.20. That’s fine, don’t cut it off, just be smarter about it: give people control over their own data, a fair price for use of it — and make the whole transaction simple and transparent.
Here are a couple of links to explore how you can request your medical health records https://digital.nhs.uk/article/6851/How-to-make-a-subject-access-request and here https://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1309.aspx?categoryid=68
These last few years have been hard, I will not lie. Many of my friends have passed away and the sudden death of my adored nephew in 2017, age 19, almost broke what was left of my resilience to all life can throw at me. I am 46, I feel 103.
Much of my working life has been about innovation, revolution and breaking boundaries, and this has been good, tiring but good. And I have been rewarded not only with honours and a relatively stable income, but also the opportunity to meet some incredible people, travel far and really feel like I made a difference to peoples’ lives. But I would trade it all for the life of my nephew.
This recent slew of death has challenged my values, and energy levels. I find myself far more focused, perhaps more selfish and a little more determined, if possible, to use the years I have left to make life better for my family and for young people.
I have shut Rewired State and Young Rewired State, they had a great decade and did what they needed to do. I know that the legacy of both lives on in all of the young people who took part in our Festival of Code every year, and the opportunities afforded by the work Rewired State was doing with governments around the world.
My daughters and I will be working together to build up Mulqueenys, an organisation that with focus on finding new ways to practically support the challenges faced by young people, mentally and emotionally – we will take our time to get this right and make it sustainable without relying on donations, but have begun this work. Indeed we had already begun this before Ezra died, but now it is more important and personal.
It is an interesting time, a complete renewal, but I will be back – it will just take a little time to heal this broken soul.
You may have heard of the first ever Hydrogen hack happening in the UK this summer, run by the uber cool Arcola Energy team, ahead of the launch of their education programme. The latest news is that we are ready to start filling up the centres. If you want to read all about the hack and apply, go here http://hydrogenhack.co.uk – but the basic idea is that 100 scientists and geeks aged 18 and under will come together in ten centres and use hydrogen fuel cells to make animate objects move faster and inanimate objects become mobile. Using a variety of fun technology, toys and fuel cells, this week promises to be challenging and completely new.
At the end of the week there will be a large competition between the projects at Ravensbourne College near the O2 in London, in front of a panel of distinguished judges.
If you look at the map on the website you will see where all the centres are, but we are just looking now at getting the right balance of young talent in each centre. By ‘scientist’ we mean that you have an interest in science and engineering, or of course are a flat out genius at science; by ‘geek’ we mean that you have coding/hacking skills; by ‘young’ we mean that you have to be aged 18 or under. Here is the list as of this week:
Nottingham University: we are looking for 8 young scientists, we have enough geeks but if you are amazing, do apply!
Techniquest, Glyndwr University, Wrexham: we are looking for 7 young scientists, we have enough geeks but if you are amazing, do apply!
Centre for Life, Newcastle: we are looking for 9 young scientists, we have enough geeks but if you are amazing, do apply!
BOC, Guildford: we are looking for 7 young scientists, and 2 young geeks
Tettenhall College, Wolverhampton: we are looking for 6 young scientists, and 2 young geeks
Monmouth school, South Wales: we are looking for 4 young scientists, we have enough geeks but if you are amazing, do apply!
University Technical College, Bolton: we are looking for 8 young scientists and 1 young geek
University of Sheffield: we are looking for 7 young scientists, we have enough geeks but if you are amazing, do apply!
In London we have a wealth of young scientists and very few geeks so far! Which is very odd, so please do apply if you love hacking and are happy getting to a centre in London. We are in the process of signing up more London centres as we have so many young science applicants – so there will be a number of centres to choose from.
You can all apply on site here http://hydrogenhack.co.uk
Right! That is it. It will be a GREAT week, and free – what more could you ask for.
{Mentors: we need you, so if you are too old for this hack but love the idea – register as a mentor, it will be as much fun – but we can’t pay you}
As we are currently in the middle stages of scale and expansion for Young Rewired State, looking at sustainability and providing a bridge to more than just one off community events such as the much adored and missed Festival of Code.
In the mean time there are still some exciting opportunities for the young programming community, including the Hydrogen Hack I have been helping Arcola energy put together as they launch the expansion of their education programme.
The challenge is to take hydrogen fuel cells, code and hardware and make something newer, faster or inanimate objects animate.
Run the same way we run the Festival, with centres around the UK, mentors and then a finale in London, those of you in the Young Rewired State community will be familiar with it. This time we want to add those young people who are also crazy about engineering.
There is only space for 100 people in ten centres across the country so I would advise registering early.
Here is the link http://hydrogenhack.co.uk
We also need mentors and centres of course, so feel free to share and invite your friends
Being me and documenting most of my working life in social media I felt compelled to write, but had no idea what to say.
Being a woman, I think it is a gender specific trait, I felt slightly ashamed, uncomfortable and guilty because so many others deserve acknowledgment for all the great things they do, and also those who helped this whole kids and coding movement.
But my forever-devil-conscience Cindy Gallop once more whipped me into stepping up for other women and girls, so that everyone feels that everything is slightly more possible, and my guilt was stuck in a vortex of unforgivable ‘damned if I do, damned if I don’t…’
But then tonight I discovered who put me forward for this honour, and suddenly I feel it is OK to write something.
The lady who put me forward has been my mentor and friend for quite a few years. She has seen me through the tears, the despair, the highs and elation, the uncertainty and the bewilderment. She has also put me on public stages, given me tequila (or ribena, depending on the moment) and she has even involved me in work she is doing that is far more high fallutin’ than my endeavours.
By knowing who put me forward I can feel comfortable knowing that it is from someone who actually knows what it takes to really follow your heart and refuse to accept the status quo, or size of the mountain of success. And I know she meant it, she really meant it.
Another message that resonated was one that said the following…
Kudos to Alice Bentinck Mike Butcher Matt Clifford Saul Klein Emma Mulqueeny Wendy Tan White Sarah Wood for the kindness, talent, and hard work that led you to be in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list today!
And the word that has hit home the most with me this year has been kindness. (Talent (should read blag and attitude) and hard work — I am not ashamed or embarrassed by the hard work side of things, so that’s OK.)…
But kindness from my benefactor got me this OBE and kindness from the community brought Young Rewired State to reality. So kindness really is the quality that I hope drives most people to go above and beyond their day-to-day obligations to family and work.
I am not going to blah on about how hard it all was, or sad refrains of evenings lost to work (like this one!), we all know stuff takes work.
So the day before it was announced I got an email, that I obviously made everyone in the office read because it was suddenly getting real (you don’t know that it is actually going to happen until this point, you just get a guarded note that says you have been proposed and accepted to be put forward by the PM to the Queen, but say nothing and expect nothing).
A part of the email I will leave at the end of this post as my mic drop, they first congratulate you, the first official notification you get that you are in, then they warn you of press queries and finally — this is the important bit, they say this:
We have been very pleased to see an increase in the number of awards to women in recent years. If you felt able to help us to communicate this message, it would be very kind if you might signpost to www.gov.uk/honours to encourage more nominations. Everyone knows someone worthy of recognition. But they won’t receive an award unless someone nominates them!
#kindness Pass it on…
In the 20 minute video here I gave last week to researchers, here are the top five things people need to know about 97ers, those millenials born in 97 or after. They are a segmented group because they grew up with social media and know no different. I did a TEDx talk about them, you can watch that here.
If you are not keen on watching videos, here are the top five things you need to know: they are:
If you are a smart brand, you need to know these five things.
It is usually about this time every year when I give bigger news than normal, and this is no exception! You may recall a few years ago I announced that I was stepping down as CEO of Rewired and Young Rewired State and moving to the board, and for the last two years we have been shaping the incredible organisation that is Rewired State, and working out how to scale Young. So… first things first:
Rewired State – the smart data agency
I cannot really put into words how proud I am of the achievements of this community of developers. Over the last seven years we have fought for and won many a battle for open data in public services (not alone of course, but with a small crew of like minded enterprises). Our move over into the commercial sector after we left our Guardian incubator was a forbearer of the greater acceptance and understanding of big data, and we began to realise true ROI for our clients.
Our brand remains resolutely strong with provenance, successful/beautiful disruption and a growing community of data designers, scientists, developers and thought-leaders.
The culmination, I guess you could say, of these last two years of really thinking about the positioning of Rewired State as we move forward is a full pivot with a clear focus on our core competencies in smart data, fully supported by our senior team leaders, the community and the Board.
We have brought in a strong commercial director: Joe Clark, who will steer future growth. I continue to work closely with Joe as Founder and Board Director, alongside my colleagues and the community. Check out our VD01 website over here and let us know if you would like to engage with this new, beautiful version of my first baby! I am ridiculously proud of it.
Young Rewired State
As those of you who know me know, this has always been my passion: this group of self taught programmers, giving them a community, real world challenges and introducing them to open data. So many of these alumni remain a part of my life and I feel like some kind of geeky Godmother most days!
It is testament to its success that it has grown to become this International community of thousands of young developers, mentors and alumni – it almost has a life of its own without anything we do centrally! However, we have a duty of care, and it is that duty that has led us to focus once again on how best to scale and fund what we do.
Now that Rewired State has completed its pivot and is already storming through with some fantastic clients and partners, it is time to lift up the hood of Young Rewired, and see how we can really enable and support scale.
We have been incredibly lucky an have been able to second the services of Oliver Wyman for a six week strategic review, looking at other ways talent is scaled internationally in other sectors, and how we might apply this to YRS. I am confident that together we will find a scalable solution to allow the developer in every child find a community, a network and future to be excited about.
This does mean that for the rest of this year, activity at the heart of YRS will be limited to supporting ongoing activities and focused on scale and funding the future. The senior management team are in discussions with some key partners for potential delivery of the Festival of Code 2016 – but those discussions are still in flow and I am unlikely to have any news on the Festival in 2016 until the end of February.
Me?
Well – I cannot tell you how ridiculously exciting the last couple of months have been – if not a little busy! I was contacted out of the blue to see if I would consider meeting with Natalia Vodianova and her team running Elbi Digital – an organisation focused on enabling everyday philanthropy. The brilliant (and kind) Joanna Shields had suggested I do so, and Eugenia Makhlin took up the challenge (she is the outgoing CEO – off to have baby number two and help steer this from the board). #womenintechnology
Natalia is a very determined lady and has already achieved an incredible amount with her Naked Heart Foundation in Russia and Elbi is her latest genius idea – to break open philanthropy and put it in the hands of all of us, in smart, beautiful and delightful ways.
Obviously this plays directly to my own personal core values and ‘things that push my buttons’. And over a long afternoon spent with Natalia and ginger tea in Paris last year, I fell in love with Elbi.
To my absolute delight, surprise and spine-tingling pleasure, I was invited to come on board as the new CEO, to bring all of the shutzpah (well, JFDI) and lessons I have learned about breaking things better from the last seven years with Rewired and Young, adding Elbi to my stable of passions!
And so it begins. I have just stepped in as CEO of Elbi Digital, our first product is live in MVP already (since late last year), go check it out on the app store (hunt for Elbi) and we will be rolling out version 1 this Spring and then the really special magic begins to happen.
Natalia has great vision, and it is truly humbling, inspiring and an incredible opportunity to be working with her, and I look forward to introducing her into the technology world we inhabit over the coming years.
Here is to the next stage of everything! I am so happy and really am thankful for all of the opportunities I get, and grateful to the massive support of those communities I am lucky enough to be a part of.
Happy New Year everyone
xoxo
If you liked that, you might like the talk I did specifically about the 97ers last year at TEDxBrum
I am going to try to cram 1200 kids, 400 mentors, 70 centre leads, 50 volunteers, 200 parents and five (yup only five) full time staff’s work at this year’s Festival write-up. A challenge – but not one as great as the one we set the 1200 kids: build something digital in a week (even if you have only just started learning to code) with only one rule: you *must* use open data. (The open data rule goes back to the origins of the Festival, where we set out to let young people know about the data government was opening on data.gov.uk back in 2009).
So please bear with me and grab a cuppa – this post will take a while to navigate, you may need to come back later.
Firstly, here is a medium post of what it is like during the week from one of our regular (and ace) centres: Lives not Knives, and how being a mentor this last week has helped her come to a decision about her career, post-Uni. How lucky the world is that this indecisive, brilliant lady has chosen a career working with young people.
Fun facts:
We were covered on BBC Breakfast, BBC lunchtime news at one, 5Live, BBC Bews at 6 and Newsnight at the beginning of the week. The finale was covered by ITV News on Sunday. And Mike Butcher (a semi-final judge) wrote this on TechCrunch.
1200 young people aged 7-18 took part
32% were female
The semi-finalists, finalists and winners are listed here and the finalists videos can be watched here (please like your favourite one as they will win a prize)
For all the different hashtags on Twitter and Instagram we had:
Paul Clarke, a photographer of huge renown, covered the Festival for us and captured every moment of joy and trepidation – you can see the photos here, they are available on CC license but obviously please don’t take the mick and if using for anything give Paul the appropriate props in the tags and attributions. It is testament to his talent that his tweet with the photographs is the top tweet on the #FoC2015 hashtag.
For me there were three defining moments of this Festival:
The first was when I was sitting at the information desk on Friday afternoon. We have registration open for six hours (it takes that long to process 1200 young people, plus their parents, mentors and centre leads into the weekend venue) – but the numbers of people signing in comes in waves, always has – we have people coming from all over. However, there is always a 4-5pm surge. During that surge, all I saw from my slightly nondescript desk and chair to the right of the escalators, was kids going “ARRRGGHHH” *running hug* “I cannot believe you are here! It’s been a year!!!!!” *bouncing hugs*. At one point, a brilliant brilliant young developer: Michael Cullum, who was at school with my daughter, saw her at registration and similarly did the running hug. It was a Festival of Code bundle, and I was pinching my arm not to cry at every reunion I witnessed.
The second defining moment for me was when I was standing slightly off stage at the end, watching the YRS Festival alumni judges. These were young people I have watched grow up and who are now too old to take part (19+), but who we chose to be the judges for their younger peers. They get it, they know what it takes, they understand what to reward and what to feedback. I sat in the judging room with our compere, Dallas Campbell – chatting about the death of Cilla Black – when the alumni judges all decided that feedback to every finalist was vital. They worked it out between them and I tried not to get emotional then. But when I stood there watching as the winners they selected were called to the stage, as they shook their hands and congratulated them – alumni to current participants – I have to admit I totally nearly lost it. But it was also a calm moment. I now know, that whatever happens – these kids have got it. Whatever we do or don’t do – the community owns this. My heart is literally bursting with pride for them.
The third was after it was all over and everyone was slowly exiting the finale space in the ICC, already drifting into mourning for the week, and two Mums of YRSers (parents *have* to accompany their children to the weekend if the kids are 13 or under) and they suggested that the next time we give the parents a chance to hack something over the weekend for them to surprise the kids with – a parents’ race, if you like (a whole other blog post). What a genius thing that we had never thought of. But perfect, so yes, something we will work on.
I am going to leave this update with a Facebook post written by Harry Rickards for all YRSers. Harry is an alumnus who came to Young Rewired State (YRS) in 2012, and is now studying at MIT. I cannot say any more – over to you, Harry:
Words are hard, but now I’m finally out of the yearly YRS sleep coma I’ll give it a try. You all are awesome. Seriously. Most of your mates spent half the week sleeping and half the week drinking in parks, and you spent the week making amazing amazing things. I say it every year but I 100% promise it’s true: every year I’m amazed by how much better the hacks have got. Seeing you all, both young and old, up on stage presenting things most professional devs could only dream of making in a week is awe-inspiring.At MIT you feel like you’re around future billionaires, future tech leaders, future everything-awesomes. YRS is this but better. Go change the world! To those who just graduated, don’t think your journey is over! Come back as a mentor/volunteer/judge, get scared at how good the kids are, and have an even more fun time partying the evenings away (because none of you have been doing that as participants ofc), watching Robert dance and Alexander use a knife like he’s from the North. Despite the road-rage journey from hell with James and Shad this weekend (I think we might get PTSD from the M40…) and Neena‘s apparent misundersanding of the concept of private property, this weekend was one of the most fun I’ve had in a while (and I’m not even gonna attempt to tag you all).Just please please please don’t let the cool kids party be at a goddamn Spoons 3 nights in a row next year. To the YRS organizers you’re the most amazing people ever. I’m sure your jobs are a trillion times harder than I think they are, and I already have no idea how you manage. YRS changed my life in so many ways: it made me get into programming and set me off into a path leading to MIT, it let me meet the best friends, and it hella inspired me. Trying not to sound like a cliched US politician (after all, thanks to YRS there’s now an app for that…), seeing the presentations and the excitement and the atmosphere and everything this weekend gave me faith in humanity.I’m by no means alone here, so keep changing lives! Now enough with the rambling and (well-deserved) superlatives and onwards to next year. I don’t see how it’s possible, but I’m sure it’ll end up being even bigger, better, more fun, world-changing, etc. And with any luck (pending the Administration’s bureaucracy) we’ll have an MIT centre over in Boston next year! #FoC2015#BestHashtag#WorldDomination
Emma Mulqueeny 